The new Whitehall Farce, at Checkers
This updated version of Yes, Prime Minster, written by
the original creators Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn brings a non-party specific
view of life behind the scenes for the Prime Minister, Jim Hacker and his team,
including the irrepressible Sir Humphrey Appleby.
Jim is now heading up the coalition government (sounds
familiar) and is teetering on the precipice of complete meltdown, both economic
and diplomatic. Offered an escape route by a highly dubious deal with the
unlikely allies of Kumranistan, Jim has to decide whether to sell out or sell
up.
This version manages at times to capture some of the
essence of the original TV shows but without the wonderful Nigel Hawthorne and
Paul Eddington any semblance is quickly dismissed as 2nd class copying. There are quite
lengthy periods of almost monotonous dialogue which pays too much attention to
the bureaucracy of government and not enough to the inter-personal shenanigans
that would keep the laughs coming.
The TV shows looked to create a non-stop 25 minutes
packed with constant plotting; Sir Humphrey knew (or thought he knew)
everything that was going on and spent most of his time protecting his own nest
while steering Jim Hacker away from making a complete hash of things.
With time at a premium there was always very careful consideration and
lines/plots/ideas which didn't deliver were simply not included. This
play, with its running time of almost 2 hours, has too much space and it is
this ‘luxury of time’ that leads to weak, unproductive and quite frankly
un-funny speeches.
The premise is still sound, the context is still very
relevant, in fact even more so now - there are many who would suggest that our
current government is already one big comedy, (or at least laughable if it
wasn’t so seriously out of touch) but unfortunately, like the current
government, its best work was done long ago, it is now living on being a mere
shadow of its former great self.
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