Review: I’M SORRY, PRIME MINISTER, Woking Theatre - Tour
Photo credit: Danny Kaan
Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister were hugely successful satirical sitcoms from 1980 to 1986, written by Jonathan Lynn alongside Anthony Jay, who had written speech for members of the conservative party. They were a battle of words and wit between the permanently bemused Minister, Jim Hacker, and his two permanent Parliamentary civil servants’ secretaries, Sir Humphrey Appleby and Bernard Woolley. Hacker was notionally in charge but was constantly out witted by Sir Humphrey who played the system and the rules to control the minister he supposedly serves. At the time, it was an amusing construct, a revealing commentary on the way the government worked. Forty years later, as we see the weekly battle between No. 10 and the civil servants exposed in social media and endless enquiries and committees, it feels less funny and a rather sad indictment of the way our elected politicians are manipulated. None of this back story is explained in the programme for the new play version currently touring the UK, so the producers either feel their audience already knows this or that they don’t need to know the characters history when we meet them again.
Jonathan Lynn had previously taken the characters to the stage in 2010, set in Chequers where the Prime Minister doing a deal with a foreign dignitary is asked to procure a prostitute for his entertainment during the stay. It feels a shocking and embarrassing extension of the idea but perhaps with the Epstein revelations filling our news, it was another striking piece of satirical parody. Now he returns to the characters again on stage with I’m Sorry, Prime Minister in which we find Jim Hacker at the age of 80 as Master of the Hacker College, endowed by a multi-millionaire donor and stuck in his 1980s views. When the college tries to remove him from the post and his home because of the things he has said, he enlists the help of seventy-five-year-old Sir Humphrey Appleby. Appleby has his own problems, having given away his wealth to save inheritance tax, he now needs a job to fund his accommodation. It sets up a series of jokes at the expense of political correctness and woke attitudes towards the Austerity, Brexit, The Empire, LGBTQ+, women and old age. We can smile as we recognise the concerns, we may titter at an observation and occasionally laugh out loud at a piece of physical comedy, but the overall effect is a rather sad social commentary on modern proclivities and attitudes and how the older generation look back on the past, regretting the confusion caused by uncertainties over which words are now deemed politically correct to use.
The production is well set with an excellent chaotic sitting room designed by Lee Newby, with a practical stair lift and well projected rear windows onto the grounds but overall, the action is very static with the main discussion being seated at the armchair and sofa with occasional comic use of a pouffe, while the care worker, Sophie, charmingly played by Princess Donnough, fusses around the two old men. Clive Francis captures the same prevaricating style of Sir Humphrey, as the originator of the character, Nigel Hawthorne, and Simon Rouse portrays the befuddled Jim Hacker at a loss to explain why a former Prime Minister is being treated this way. The verbal sparring is well delivered, and the characters are successfully recreated but even if we sympathise with their views, we don’t emotional engage with their characters even though the actors are making the most of the material they have been given. It is Clive Francis’ physical comedy that gets the biggest laughs.
The humour is gentle. The characters may appeal to those who remember the originals with affection. Many in the audience will sympathise with the discussions presented. There is a central message about friendship and isolation in old age but overall, there is a sense that Lynn would have been better off leaving his memorable characters as we once laughed at.
*** Three stars
Reviewed by: Nick Wayne