Politics at its farcical best

Yes, Prime Minister, Lowry, Salford
ANTONY Jay and Jonathan Lynn’s superb satire was always more than just a sit-com.

Brilliantly observed, wonderfully detailed and packed with storylines that mimicked real political life, it changed forever the public’s view of politicians and civil servants.

No longer were they the calm hand on the ship of state, but incompetents guiding it on to the rocks.

Over two decades later they return with a full-length stage play not cobbled together from old scripts but of new, up-to-date material, directed by Lynn himself.

Within the first few minutes of the Chequers-set comedy, PM Jim Hacker (Richard McCabe, far more desperate and down to earth than Paul Eddington ever was) faces up to a failing international finance conference and a hostile BBC examination of his government “in crisis” — not forgetting his paper-thin reputation within his own party and plots on all sides.

While the TV series was slightly exaggerated reality, the stage version is a broader, livelier affair that veers closer to farce as Hacker gets deeper in trouble and further out of control.

In fact this would definitely be farce, if only there were more doors.

So far so familiar, but when the foreign minister of an oil rich state proposes a $10trillion loan to get Europe out of trouble, it comes with strings attached that take the modern YPM very far from the TV version.

The minister, a guest at Chequers, merely wants the PM to supply him with an under-age girl for the night.

Of the face of it outrageous, the writers muddy the waters by asking the unaskable question: what price a teen’s sexuality when the whole economy of Europe is at stake? Especially if they can find a foreign, preferably illegal-immigrant girl they technically aren’t responsible for anyway...

While thinking the seemingly unthinkable, Sir Humphrey (Simon WIlliams, much jauntier than Nigel Hawthorne, diving into the classic obfuscatory soliloquies with great enthusiasm) solves the day while Hacker’s private secretary Bernard (the much-put-upon Chris Larkin) does his best to do the right thing and political adviser Claire (Charlotte Lucas) continually gives Hacker the wrong advice.

Though the cast has a heck of a job wiping out the memory of the sublime TV crew they have the advantage of being in an entirely different kind of show and play it for everything it has — which is a lot, assisted by Lynn’s masterly direction of his own material, always just this side of political silliness.