Aptly-timed post-election with pertinent additions referring to a hung parliament and coalition government, Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn’s Yes, Prime Minister is a humorous barrage of satire and irony.
David Haig plays the PM , at times closely resembling, both physically and verbally, a bumbling John Cleese, with Henry Goodman as Sir Humphrey Appleby, senior civil servant, delivering absurdly long, wordy speeches to the delight of the audience.
The play is set in a beautifully designed Chequers where the PM is in dire straits trying to procure a loan from Kumranistan if that country is allowed to build a pipeline through Europe.
The success of the deal, however, depends on the procurement of an under-age girl to spend the night with its foreign minister. This moral dilemma is the subject of the play which has the audience in stitches from beginning to end as the farce unfolds.
Having never seen the original ‘80’s sitcom, I came to this with no preconceptions but I left wanting to see more of the same.
Review by Wendy Marshall