I should have watched Yes, Prime Minister (Mellow Drama at the Manoel) later in its six-day run.
A tame and unconvincing ending, made clear by the audience’s less than enthusiastic final applause- Paul Xuereb
This farcical comedy by Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lynn is in two long acts which can seem very long indeed if the pace in the playing starts flagging and if one or two actors try, as they did on the first night, and further upset the rhythm.
Unlike the brilliant television version, which of course was a serial, this stage version has farcical elements in the plot but very little farcical stage business, one of the few exceptions being a not very successful scene in which Jim Hacker, the Prime Minister, Bernard, his private secretary, and his female special adviser kneel down to pray for divine assistance when things are going really badly.
The piece remains basically a long comedy of words, and unless all the lines are well projected and good pace maintained, audience interest can weaken. James Calvert’s direction has not provided the production with the tightness it needs, but perhaps the work itself has too many plot elements that do not always cohere.
The characters are in many ways similar to those in the television version, but there are some significant changes.
Sir Humphrey is still the wily, power-thirsty civil servant, but he no longer dictates what happens, for Jim, backed by his special adviser, does not always abide by Sir Humphrey’s advice, though he still asks for it.
Bernard is now seen to be much more someone who insists on abiding by ethics and morals than before.
The play is set in contemporary Britain, and Jim leads a coalition government as well as holding the EU presidency.
We do not see him in Downing Street but at Chequers, and all the action takes place in his study-cum-sitting room.
Sir Humphrey, his cunning and unscrupulous permanent secretary, Bernard and Claire, his private adviser, are all there, and so are a minister from Kumranistan, and his ambassador.
Things are going badly for Jim, and it’s not just a matter of keeping the coalition together. He is having problems with an EU conference he is chairing, the BBC threatens problems with his image, and the minister from Kumranistan is offering an agreement to supply oil to the EU and with it a very handsome loan with which to buy the stuff.
Sir Humphrey, as usual, has been keeping important information from him, but Jim gets good advice from Bernard and succeeds in ensuring that money coming to the UK will be in sterling, not in euro.
The major problem, however, comes when the minister, whom the audience never sees, makes the deal conditional on his being provided with an under-age girl to sleep with him. There is much talking about ethics and human rights, with Bernard taking the high moral ground, but Jim’s reluctance is overcome when they decide to get a non-British girl to service the visiting minister.
Claire’s intervention in this matter, however, is disastrous, and the whole scandalous operation to provide a girl is on the verge of getting blown to the press; it is prevented by the thoroughly undemocratic removal of the girl and her mother, an illegal immigrant, from the scene.
The Kumranistan ambassador now says the deal is through, but Jim’s bacon is saved when during a BBC interview he announces an EU document on climate change, one that requires action requiring some 20 years or so, a large project that will endear him both to the EU and to his English voters. It is a pretty tame and unconvincing ending, and this was made clear by the audience’s less than enthusiastic final applause.
Alan Montanaro is an uneasy politician always in dread of a disaster round the corner. He still needs Sir Humphrey, but when he catches him out giving confidential advice to his banker friends, he turns on him roundly.
His performance, however, is the one that pushes most forward the work’s new farcical element. This works mainly well, but not when in the second act Montanaro goes over the top in a scene where he panics, his long frame going through a whole series of contortions and grotesque gesticulations.
This was dangerously close to panto. By and large, however, he makes us care for Jim as a man caught in political and moral dilemmas.
John Montanaro’s Sir Humphrey catches the essence of the wily civil servant who cares above all for making the politicians dance to civil service tunes, and for increasing his personal power. He speaks the character’s long speeches full of gobbledegook very well, driving Jim into a fit of exasperation and producing guffaws from the audience.
What he lacks is the inner cunning so excellently portrayed by Nigel Hawthorne’s Sir Humphrey. All the time it is his words we follow, not the working of his thoughts.
Steve Casaletto’s Bernard is not as smooth an ex-public schoolboy as one would expect, and his Latin quotes can be incomprehensible, but his honesty shines through, and in fact, he is the play’s centre of honesty and integrity as well as the sole character one can like without reservations.
Jo Caruana’s elegantly attired Claire needs to project both her lines and her character rather more, while Colin Fitz, after a shaky opening on the first night, makes the anglicised Kumranistan ambassador into a paragon of Asian cunning.