Yes, Prime Minister

[gominokouhai]

Yes, Prime Minister
The King's Theatre (run ended)

It takes massive balls to follow in the footsteps of Nigel Hawthorne. Now I know why Group Captain Gilmore's men call him ‘Chunky’.

A touring stage show of a twenty-year-old political satire? That's never going to work, surely? Well... yes and no, Minister. Original series writers Anthony Jay and Jonathyn Lynn deliver the same crackling character-driven dialogue as before, and it is wonderful to behold. But occasionally—just occasionally, mark you—it becomes apparent that the state of political satire has moved on since the 1980s, and Jay and Lynn may have failed to move with it.

It's Chris Morris' fault, of course. There's only one man who can make child prostitution funny, or Anglo-Arab relations in a world beset by Islamic terrorism (and even he can only do it when Armando Iannucci is producing). During the 1980s it was possible to make a gentle comedy of manners about the terrible things that happen in politics: now it's necessary to refer to the the giant elephant in the room about illegal wars and thousands of needless deaths. A proper satire should skate along the uncomfortable, but this crossed the personal line of everyone I spoke to. It's brave to make the attempt, but it shouldn't be surprising that the show is most successful when it more closely emulates the original series.

Let's talk acting. Characterizations range from absolutely bang spot-on (the aforementioned massively-genitalled Simon Williams as Sir Humphrey) to bloody good with certain caveats (an interesting choice by Chris Larkin to play Bernard as much less hesitant and impressionable than the Bernard we're familiar with). Richard McCabe deftly navigates a narrow corridor between the Jim Hacker of old and that oleaginous fuckface we're currently lumbered with as the (sadly real, non-fictional) Prime Minister. (I wonder how much of a problem this was for Paul Eddington: navigating between his own character and Maggie.) Charlotte Lucas excellently plays a competent policy advisor to Hacker's PM, but alas she's given the sort of character who, like Frank Weisel in Yes, Minister or Dorothy Wainwright in Yes, Prime Minister, would be quietly dropped after a few episodes for lack of anything interesting to do.

On which note: the plot. It would fill a half-hour episode or even a newfangled fifty-minute episode very neatly, but at two hours it tries to do too much. Entire scenes and at least one character could be excised: the BBC Director-General appears for a while to bluster about government interference in broadcasting—clearly one of Jay and Lynn's pet subjects, given the number of times that identical dialogue appeared in the TV series—and to agree to an interview that forms the climactic scene of the play, which could alternatively have been arranged by a single line of conversation somewhere. It's important to pile multifarious and myriad pressures upon our beleaguered PM for the surprisingly effective payoff in the second act when it all degenerates, or rather develops, into farce: but it could have been done more tightly. And as observed above, there are some lines you don't cross in light comedy. Child prostitution, sex trafficking and the mounting death toll in Afghanistan are three off the top of my head. Had the play not deliberately and with malice aforethought crossed those three lines in succession, it would have been the length it deserved.

As a revival show for a well-loved cult comedy, even one with a few contemporary jokes thrown in, it's brilliant. As a current satire, sadly, it fails. As a feature-length pilot for a new series?... I'd commission it, but I'd keep a close eye on it for improvements.

I've had my obligatory obscure Doctor Who reference for this post, so this one's a free bonus. Watching this was just like the TV Movie. It was glorious to have it back just for one evening, but still it wasn't quite right.

Comments

[scotm]

"It's brave to make the attempt" - Sir Humph might say courageous.

Didn't care a whit about Charlotte Lucas' character. She was a walking plot point with little comic timing.

[gominokouhai]

That's why her character, and the identical walking plot-points from the series, rapidly get written out.

It occurs to me that Jay and Lynn do one thing and they do it incredibly well. Well, three things and nice red uniforms. Dialogue between Humphrey and Hacker; dialogue between Humphrey and Bernard; dialogue between Hacker and Bernard. Occasionally they can also do a triologue that works well. But all other characters seem extraneous.

It's a shame because it must really suck to play the fourth wheel in such a scene. I disagree with you about Lucas' comic timing; I suspect that she has bags of it, from the few hints we saw, but she wasn't given much opportunity to show us.

[digitalraven]

I'll charitably say that I disagree with you on the characterisation of Bernard—Chris Larkin to me seemed to be playing the easily-lead fool, replete with silly squeaky voice and a lisp that smacked of too much arse-liking. That may be his normal voice, but if it is then he was already a bad choice for the role. He too often mistook Bernard's pedantry for simple idiocy, which is doing the character a disservice.

[gominokouhai]

Different interpretation of the character. Bernard's an incredibly difficult one to play---even Derek Fowlds didn't always get it right. In the stage context, particularly given the events of act two, you need a more overtly comic-relief character who can headless-chicken his way about the place. Given the different requirements and the fact that he was still more-or-less recognizably Bernard, I think a balance was struck.

[(Anonymous)]

Actually I disagree a bit about Sir Humphrey being dead on - the essence of YPM is that he is always effortlessly in control and that Hacker never really trusts him and at last minute finds ways round sir H having all the cards. Yet we lost both of those - a lot of the time Sir H sat around like spare prick while the PM ran show (badly, but still.) In the old show PM would hve floundered and the special advisor would have passed him info at last minute to save the day. But i suppose they needed to have a woman on stage more of the time! But she did far too much of the running.

I also thought it was really out of character that Sir H would have deliberately leaked info that would have damaged the economy - he would have done things to keep things his cost status quo way sure, but not something actually illegal and harmful to public.

And Hacker would never have appted Sir H the Global Warming Czar because he trusted him to do it well! He;dhave dine it as part of a scheme to get his own way, or at least a bit of it. i know it was a throwaway to finish the show, and that it was meant to be a big irony as Sir H was a global warning unbeleiver, but I thought that was really bad plotting.

Also they could at least have disposed of a few of the ways the matter could have been sorted out, even tho again i know reality was not the point, eg I kept thinking, if they have a heli why don't they fly the foreign min to London, rather than bringing out a girl? Much easier deniability.

I actually expected the end to be linguistic confusion - eg that the foreign min had been asking for a "schooled girl" ie educated, not under age. I think something like that would have made it all a bit easier to swallow in its cosy 80s world. I think it was a bad mistake for them to have it hinging on pedophilia - it was noticeable the biggest laugh of the evening was a nice safe laugh at the Freedom of Information act. (Unlike you tho, i rather enjoyed the BBC stuff.) But altogether a rather strange failure, yes.

[gominokouhai]

Some interesting points.

> the essence of YPM is that he is always effortlessly in control and that Hacker never really trusts him and at last minute finds ways round sir H having all the cards. Yet we lost both of those

That was the essence of YPM in the 80s. The situation has changed both in government and in the civil service; Sir H is still handling everything behind the scenes, but not in the same way as he used to. That's why he was insider-dealing with the bank: that's how it's done these days.

Yes, the denouement seemed rushed.

Where on earth did you get the idea I dislike the TV series? I love the TV series. I own the boxset.

[stormclouds]

I walked out at the interval along with at least four other people although I didn't know that at the time. I couldn't handle the paedophilia aspect at all* and that list of countries including Thailand brought back some really shitty memories. I'm actually surprised I made it home in one piece. Fortunately I had a wonderful person calm me down over the phone and Mark's flatmate was really nice to be and suggested tea when I got in rather bedraggled and still in a state about 90 minutes later. Bloody buses.


*Had I known it was about that I would not have gone.