As another Prime Minister bows out of Downing Street, the fictional former PM Jim Hacker is leaving the stage too – this week taking his leave at the Theatre Royal, Brighton.
I’m Sorry, Prime Minister is a comedy of manners as Hacker conspires and clashes once again with his old civil service foil Sir Humphrey Appleby.
The plot, such as it is, hardly thickens. It’s more of a pretext for a series of witty and fairly gentle ruminations and observations on – among other things – woke ways, generational inequality and Brexit.
Robert Kitson, as Hacker, now the master of an Oxford college, faces losing his position – and with it his home – having haplessly caused offence.
As in the TV series (Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister), he has some of the snappiest lines, such as: “I’m not dead! I’m in the House of Lords.”
But Clive Francis, as the urbane Sir Humphrey, occasionally steals the show with his delightful outbursts of baffling bureaucratic jibberish as he twists the language in an ever-more contorted manner.
His mangling is memorable as a trademark, even if the lines are hard to recall – so full credit to 80-year-old Francis for a tour de force. His first verbal flurry won hearty applause at the opening in Brighton.
The show is a nostalgia-fest for many in the audience, seasoned by the way that Francis seemed to echo the cadences of Nigel Hawthorne, who played the role on television in the 1980s.
He even appeared to be channelling aspects of the look and sound of the former Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine.
Besides Sir Humphrey, Hacker has another foil in I’m Sorry, Prime Minister in his care worker Sophie, played with wit, warmth and intelligence – and the right degree of sparkiness – by Princess Donnough.
They are joined by William Chubb as retired High Court judge Sir David whose job is to do the bidding of the college students and staff in expelling Hacker from his post.
Kitson, incidentally, stepped in last month when Simon Rouse, as the old PM, he stood because of illness.
The script by Jonathan Lynn – who wrote Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister with the late Anthony Jay – survives being set away from the heart of government, in part thanks to the dynamics between the two old rivals.
Lynn draws out the foibles and frailties of Hacker – cancelled by his college – and Sir Humphrey, griping that he has been consigned to a care home by his ungrateful daughter-in-law.
The droll script has enough laughs – and enough of a story – to entertain, and enough breadth to cater for more than just those who remember the original series from more than 40 years ago.
The characters old and new are played well, with chemistry where it counts and charm too.
