Theatre Royal Bath
"If you gave the people exactly what they wanted, you'd have hanging back" says Clive Francis's world-weary civil servant.
"Yes!" ejaculates a lady in the row in front of us. Oh dear.
Well, the audience for a follow up to Yes Minister was always going to be of a certain age. The same age as me, come to think of it. The TV show is now a relic of a bygone era: the golden age of British sit-coms when Paul Eddington, Nigel Hawthorn and "Mister" Derek Fowlds still roamed the prairie and when a talking heads political satire with a Gerald Scarfe title sequence was indispensable viewing. It was swept away by an asteroid called Spitting Image.
And in truth, it was a little obsolescent even in its heyday: the era of Civil Service Mandarins was even then giving way to the age of spin-doctors and special advisors. But it still lurks on the threshold of every political discussion. If a politician does something stupid, we are inclined to say that he has made a very courageous decision. If it turns out that a policy is unconstitutional, or contrary to regulations, or unfeasible, some pundit will still stroke his chin and say "Sir Humphrey" as if that settles the matter.
There was a serious political theory behind the show: that very small cogs turn very big wheels; that great political decisions are the result of petty backroom power struggles; that a squabble about tea breaks can cause a major shift in foreign policy. But the comedy situation is perennial: a mostly well-meaning but not-very-bright politician trying to get things done, while a very clever civil servant uses Machiavellian schemes to maintain the status quo. It ain't a million miles from Jeeves and Wooster.
As a coda to the TV series, I'm Sorry Prime Minister stands up remarkably well. None of the original cast are still alive, and the script is written by the surviving half of the original script duo, Jonathan Lynn. Former Prime Minister Jim Hacker (Chris Bianchi) is now Master of Hacker College, Oxford. It's a lifetime appointment, but he's under pressure to resign because of some injudicious remarks that a student recorded and posted to the internet. (He doesn't think the statue of Cecil Rhodes should be removed, and tends to the opinion that the British Empire did some good things, although he concedes that he was drunk when he said them.) He's mainly lucid and independent, but he is sufficiently frail that he has had to employ a young plot-device, Sophie (Michaela Bennison) to help him out. Sophie is, of course, black, gay, and left-wing, but she's also unexpectedly Christian. She has a degree in English literature and quotes canonical literature while gesticulating dramatically in a way no English graduate ever would. Hacker calls Sir Humphrey (Clive Francis) to help him retain his job; and it turns out that Humphrey would like some kind of position at the college in return. Hilarity ensues.
Well, maybe not quite hilarity. But a good deal of urbane chuckling.
On the plus side, Bianchi channels Hacker with uncanny accuracy: voice and mannerisms are spot on. I kind of wanted to check the programme to see if reports of Paul Eddington's death had been exaggerated. Francis isn't as instantly convincing as Sir Humphrey, but there is no problem suspending disbelief after the first couple of minutes. We fall quickly back into the pattern of one-liners from the series; very many of which come off. ("There are no politicians of my intellectual standing" says Hacker. "Well, at least we can be grateful for small mercies" retorts Sir Humphrey.) The script has obviously been gently edited to keep up with current events. ("Prime Ministers nowadays don't go into the Lords. With one exception who's name I forget.") Some of the by-play between Sophie and Hacker in the first half of the first act is pretty funny; with Hacker perpetually saying the wrong thing and being gently corrected. (There is a running gag that he calls her his "Carer" but she insists on Care Worker. "Like Sex Worker?" he says at one point.) Sir Humphrey still has a way with long, rambling, self-contradictory speeches full of jargon and equivocation. He also has a habit of correcting mixed metaphors, a habit which he says Bernard learned from him.
There is a distinct poignancy which the series never had: it was funny to laugh at a fairly insignificant middle-aged man who has been promoted far beyond his level of competency; but slightly harder to laugh at an old man who can't admit that he was a failure in his chosen career. ("Gladstone and Churchill. Our two greatest Prime Ministers. Apart from me.") And the play touches on the indignities of old age; both Hacker and Sir Humphrey are losing their memories, and Hacker needs Sophie's help to go to the loo.
In 1982, Sir Humphrey said that he's been a civil servant for thirty years, which means he can't possibly be less than 95 years old, but both characters are treated as "over eighty" for the purposes of the story.
But the play loses it's way rather badly in the second half when Sir Humphrey and Sophie have to defend Hacker in front of a member of the university governing body. We circle round a series of what are essentially Daily Telegraph talking points -- safe spaces, trigger warnings, imperial history, pronouns. Some students at Hacker college have objected to being asked to read Fire Next Time by James Baldwin on the grounds that it contains the word "negro" -- not the other n-word -- which I don't entirely believe. The exchanges have no particular narrative logic to them: Hacker says something mildly inappropriate or offensive; Sophie refutes him; and Sir Humphrey says something sardonic under his breath. The play is having a go at tackling current ishoos; and it's heart is generally on the right side, but it does start to feel contrived, not to say amateurish. Like the Roundheads and the Cavaliers, Hacker is mostly affable but wrong while Sophie is mostly sanctimonious but right.
When Hacker quotes "How are the mighty fallen", Sophie histrionically recites the source. "That's the first time I've heard the Bible called queer literature" remarks Sir Humphrey. He doesn't see anything wrong with calling pooftahs pooftahs because, having been at a posh English boys' school, practically everyone he knows is a pooftah.
When it becomes apparent that Hacker is not going to be able to stay on as Master and Sir Humphrey isn't going to be offered a lecturing position, Sophie spots the solution -- just slightly after the audience does -- which is not completely believable but genuinely rather touching and a nice way to end the story. Although it could actually have been a set up for a whole new series if anyone wanted it to be.
I assume that sit com fans don't worry about canon in the way that normal people do. Several of the events from Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister are referenced directly -- the emulsified high-fat offal tube and the nude save-the-badger demonstration, to name but two -- but we are asked to believe that the retired Hacker is living in a contemporary, post-Brexit, post-culture-wars Britain. I think we have to assume that the play is set in a parallel universe where there was a very short-lived Hacker interregnum between Major and Blair.
Which kind of makes him a Liz Truss figure; but with better jokes.
I'm Andrew.
I am trying very hard to be a semi-professional writer and have taken the leap of faith of down-sizing my day job.
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