Review: I'M SORRY PRIME MINISTER starring Griff Rhys Jones, Apollo Theatre

Some years ago, I decided, very much to my own surprise, that I quite liked our monarchy. Not personally, but conceptually - specifically that it gave us a head of state separate from the head of the executive. It allowed a proper disdain (or acclaim) for the shabby, disappointing real world of politics to be insulated from the ceremonial, showbiz element of the constitution. Important at times of national crisis or mourning.

A side effect of that wise division, now buried deep in the past, is that 'prime minister' is a job, with any power accruing to its incumbent entirely derived from their office. Few PMs have buildings or institutions named after them (as do American presidents) and the shortlived suggestion to rename Heathrow Airport after Margaret Thatcher never got off the ground. Aside from sniping from the sidelines or making obscene amounts of money from the corporate world, what is there for an ex-PM to do?

Get old and die.

That rather bleak realisation has hit Jim Hacker (of Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister) hard, but at least he’s comfortable, holed up in an Oxford college, improbably named for him, in relative comfort. The marbles are slightly drifting away - but, let’s be honest, he seldom played with a full hand in his glory days - so he takes in a carer, sorry, care worker, as the overworked running gag has it, the perceptive Sophie. 

Then news breaks that Jim has said the wrong thing, the wrong things plural really, and he’s up for cancellation and loss of the sinecure on Easy Street, lodge and all. So he turns to his old mucker, Sir Humphrey Appleby, whose old age compensations are also in some jeopardy, and the two frenemies once more joust as they plot a route through the thickets of bureaucracy.

If that sounds a bit forced, it’s because it is, set-ups for sequels (in this instance, billed as a final chapter) often stretching much-loved characters to breaking point before the story at hand can get going. That judgement would be unfair in this case, as the TV series’ co-creator, Jonathan Lynn, writing alone as Antony Jay died nearly ten years ago, keeps plenty of their two unforgettable characters in the play. Lynn also co-directs with Michael Gyngell, so his hand is very much on the tiller.

Hacker is certainly Hacker, although his notorious penchant for a political flip-flop feels outdated in a world that has only grown more partisan, more certain in its ignorance, since he held office. Sir Humphrey isn’t quite Sir Humphrey - would he be so easily outmaneuvered by a daughter-in-law and left so exposed? - but he hasn’t lost the swaggering commitment to his own nebulous loyalties, even if he’s no longer a civil servant. 

Sophie is a welcome addition to the bromacing pensioners, especially in the stronger first half, giving a 21st century perspective on the 20th century men. Wisely, Lynn writes the black, lesbian, Oxford graduate straight rather than caricature, and Stephanie Levi-John lends a quiet dignity to a life that is still well short of delivering on the very considerable potential it holds. At one point, she says of Jim, “I like him”, though it’s really quite hard to see why - other than the structural one that keeps her, like Derek Fowlds’ Bernard Woolley back in the day, as a wry observer standing somewhere between Jim and Sir Humphrey, like a boxing referee.

Much of the above is probably beside the point, since the biggest factor in filling the warm bath of nostalgia for which most of the house are paying, lies in the casting. Griff Rhys Jones has the name recognition for the playbill and can do exasperated bumbling with a winning charm, but he veers too close to Boris Johnson at times - forgivable, but hard to take for those of us who enjoy every day in which the ex-PM is absent from our thoughts.

Clive Francis fares much better, at nearly 80, close to his character’s age and razor sharp in delivery and timing. He rightly garners applause for three examples of the kind of tour de force word salads in which Sir Humphrey excelled, obfuscation raised to a high art - William Gilbert no doubt smiling down at the patter song’s heritage given new life in the West End. Crucially, Francis appears to be enjoying it every bit as much as we are, an underrated skill in comic acting. He surely comes close to breaching the fourth wall on occasion and we’d all enjoy it if he did!

The pace flattens in the second half with tired debates about wokery (if Piers Morgan has written a whole book about a subject, it’s a fair bet that it has been hollowed out entirely) and an ending that is intended to provoke a gentle fuzziness for the journey home, but comes across as merely glib.

Never mind. Comedies are to be cherished and this one delivers its laugh quotient even if, to draw a parallel from musicals, the book lets it down somewhat. And there are bigger problems than that in 2026 theatre - and politics.   

I'm Sorry Prime Minister at The Apollo Theatre until 9 May

Photo images: Johan Persson

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