Theatre
Yes, Prime Minister
Manoel Theatre

Nothing comes close to the clean and incisive political satire of the 1980s. It was an era where the stakes were high, the situation dire and the figures memorable.

It is hard to pull off a character whose devious subtleties are influenced by close to 40 years of service, when the actor is fresh-faced- André Delicata

What BBC comedy did back then was to draw inspiration from the everyday parliamentary occurrences of the time – from the Cold War to the Falklands and a plethora of diplomatic minefields, and come up with a smart, witty criticism of the mechanics of politics.

Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lynn’s Yes, Minister was followed by their equally popular Yes, Prime Minister in the mid-80s. Mr Jay and Mr Lynn started a theatrical revival of the latter in 2010 and their stage play has been successfully touring Britain ever since.

Mellow Drama’s production of the eponymous piece, which ran earlier this month, is the first time the stage play has been taken beyond British shores and given that many of us have very fond memories of the original show, a full house was in attendance.

What I found strikingly appropriate was Lino Mallia’s set design – a wood-panelled office in Chequers, the Prime Minister’s country residence. It really pulled the piece together and worked well as a permanent backdrop for office politics. Office politics, which, I fear went a tad too far.

While Alan Montanaro made a perfectly good Jim Hacker, the Prime Minister and delivered his lines with his usual impeccable timing, I found his role to be rather too predictable and this was an underlying problem in the performance generally.

The real star of the show was of course, Cabinet Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby, played in this production by the talented and willing John Montanaro, who was however rather miscast in terms of age by director James Calvert.

It is very hard to pull off a character whose devious subtleties are influenced by close to 40 years of service, when the actor in question is fresh-faced and full of promise.

Sir Humphrey was always more of a “promise fulfilled” kind of man. John Montanaro did, however, give a commendable performance which lost none of his usual clarity and dynamics.

Colin Fitz’s Kumranistan Ambassador, while funny, did not quite connect in the way one would have expected of a quirky foreign diplomat.

Barry Calvert as BBC Director General and Coryse Borg who played a token role as BBC presenter both fulfilled their duties, so to speak.

It was Steve Casaletto’s Principal Private Secretary, Bernard Woolley and Jo Caruana’s Special Policy Adviser, Claire Sutton who fit their roles best, in my opinion.

Quite apart from appearing the part, Ms Caruana’s occasionally shrill but no-nonsense, confident Ms Sutton worked because she made the character her own. As did Mr Casalletto with his bumbling Bernard and his dry one-liners.

While the energy was high and the pace controlled, the problem I had was with Mr Lynn’s and Mr Jay’s script itself, which, while cleverly weaving in contemporary material and some original re-written quips to reflect the local scene, was far too long to work as well as one could hope for.

The great quality of the original series was in the succinct manner in which the political commentary was made and this new revamp, however clever, was far too verbose and despite the racier nature of the scandal the politicos were dealing with – the request by a diplomat for an underage call-girl - it felt a bit too much like an attempt to reclaim past glory.

The production remained, technically, a good one, with the right tone and poise but failed to leave a lasting impression.