Yes, Prime Minister

Yes, Prime Ministeris a popular franchise, having spawned five television series, a radio series, three novels and now a West End stage adaptation, so it seems almost sacrilege to criticize what some people regard as one of the best British television comedies ever written. But there’s the rub. This is a television concept which doesn’t belong on a stage. Despite current references to global warming, carbon tax and underage sex, I found it long past its use-by date. Some jokes landed, but for most of the evening it was a barren landscape. Perhaps the machinations of British parliament and British politicians pale into insignificance when played out alongside the grubby bottom-of-the-barrel shenanigans of our own parliament.

Stepping into the shoes of Yes, Prime Minister’s iconic characters Sir Humphrey Appleby and Jim Hacker, was not an easy job, but Tony Llewellyn Jones and Mark Owen-Taylor mostly rose to the occasion. Owen-Taylor’s Hacker was by far the best performance on the night - bumbling, but astute and likeable. Llewellyn-Jones, who replaced Philip Quast as Appleby, was believable as the knighted bureaucrat but lacked that pompous edge that is unmistakably British upper-class. John Lloyd Fillingham’s Bernard Wolley, with his ill-fitting suit and awkward poses was a perfect foil for his two superiors. Losing lines upstage and a bad English accent hampered Caroline Craig’s performance as Special Policy Advisor Claire Sutton, a new character to the group. Shaun Gurton’s set design was undoubtedly the star of the night – an old-fashioned country-house drawing-room, for an old-fashioned drawing-room play. It will please many. I was just not one of them.

Peter Pinne