Yes Prime Minister @ Darlington Civic

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 2^nd 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.