Yes, Prime Minister: A Review

Review of: Yes, Prime Minister – The Stage Play
(***NB THIS REVIEW CONTAINS VAGUE SPOILERS***)

As so often happens with West End Shows, the desire and good intentions to go and see one is tempered by the cost of both the ticket and, living outside of London, the day out that it entails. Yes, Prime Minister and We Will Rock You fall in the top category of ‘ones I really wish I had gone to see.’ If one waits long enough, however, occasionally, just occasionally, the mountain will come to Mohammad. Or, in this case, the Birmingham Hippodrome. The first of these shows to visit was the stage version of Yes, Prime Minister - the wonderful 1980s sitcom by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, touring after a successful West End run in 2010. Knowing nothing about it, I was interested to see how they managed the change in medium.

Which approach would they take? It’s potentially a hard balance to strike. Do they go for and hour and forty five minutes of traditional Yes, Minister? This would run the risk of leaving the audience with the feeling that yes, they enjoyed it, but might just as well have stayed in and watched the original on DVD. The alternative is that they change it and run the opposite risk, that of the public leaving thinking that what they had seen was not Yes, Minister but just a modern day political satire more in the vein of The Thick Of It. What they gave, ultimately, was a mixture of the two, with mixed success.

The opening gambit, setting the scene of the story at the Prime Ministers' retreat in the country, Chequers, was very much in the vein of the original. Sir Humphrey Appleby (Simon Williams) obfuscating, misdirecting and saying anything but the truth; Jim Hacker (Richard McCabe) frustrated at everyone’s inability to be specific and truthful. Traditional Yes, Minister then, and brilliant with it, in spite of Bernard being played more as a fool than the trodden upon original.

Then a turn. In topic, in tone, in atmosphere.

Now the story becomes in one way a farce, in others a horror, as a visiting delegate for a made-up Eastern European country demands sex with a schoolgirl. Not someone dressed as a schoolgirl, an actual schoolgirl. Some of the audience were I think lost at this point. There were certainly two empty seats on my row after the interval. From this point the situation spiralled out of the control of the characters, and the farcical elements were played out very well, reaching a zenith when Sir Humphrey was illuminated entering the room as if sent from the Gods, backlit with the rest of the stage in darkness. Sir Humphrey was the highlight of the show (which was no surprise at all) as he was most like the character we know and love. Hacker was not like the television Hacker for the most part, more a generic politician raging against the system, but not as put upon and bemused as Paul Eddington was. So when he got one over on Sir Humphrey it didn’t have the same effect on the audience as when Nigel Hawthorne was left speechless and, therefore, was not as funny.

Bernard did raise some laughs, but in more of a foolish manner than in the television series where his genial nature in pointing out the obvious to an increasingly irate Hacker raised the laughs. Here there was lots of face pulling and physical humour, and you never fully felt that he was comfortable in his position. The part of Claire Sutton, a Special Policy Advisor, felt overacted, whereas the role of the Kumranistan Ambassador was subtly played without honing in on the unsavoury aspect of the character. But it was the part of the plot to do with sex with a child that felt awkward, not particularly funny and slightly overpowering. Couple that with a sequence where Hacker prays to God that the situation is resolved, and you find yourself watching a scene that actually engenders a rather uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach.

All of this borders on a negative review, but overall it was a very enjoyable experience and worth it to see Jay and Lynn pitch themselves to a modern audience. Not that anything has changed of course – watching Yes, Minister now is to see that nothing has changed in thirty years and that politics and politicians will always be the same, whatever the age. Here Sir Humphrey was noticeably Sir Humphrey, Hacker did have plenty of good lines, Bernard was funny in a different way to that which you would expect, and the punch line of Hacker praying was actually very good. So if asked the question would I recommend this stage play, I would, despite the reservations I have expressed, have to reply with a definite ‘Yes, Minister.’

http://www.yesprimeminister.co.uk/