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PM Jim back in the old routine
Prime Minister Jim Hacker (Richard McCabe, left) is suitably confused by the comforting advice of Sir Humphrey Appleby (Simon Williams)
WHEN
Yes, Minister
first arrived on our TV screens in
1980 it was not only gloriously funny, after all everyone delights in
sticks being poked through the bars at politicians, but it was a
revelation to most of the population. "Is Government really like that?" "Well I never. They must know something to write it, mustn't they" seemed to be the general reaction, between the laughs, of all those who watched it. Well perhaps not quite all. Journalists who dealt
with politics could have told readers about a world where words may or
may not mean what you think they do, and would mean something else a
week later. A world where votes or agreements are not
necessarily for the matter in hand but are payment for some concession
three weeks ago or even yet to come. A world where a ten minute answer does not even
come within hailing distance of the question asked and often, when read
back says nothing at all while out and out lies are merely
misunderstandings or something an unfortunate journalist has misquoted. It is called politics and journalists could have
told people but no one would have believed them – this is until Yes,
Minister blew the lid off the cosy inner sanctums of Whitehall where
whichever party formed the Government found it only governed with
the consent of the collection of Sir Humphreys who ran the club where
MPs and ministers had been granted temporary membership.
Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime
Minister had more than a grain of truth about the power plays in
politics with Paul Eddington as Hacker and the brilliant Sir Nigel
Hawthorne as his permanent secretary Appleby ensuring his minister did
not stray too far off the leash with Derek Fowlds as Bernard Woolley,
the Principal Private Secretary, hovering in the middle. The shows, written by Sir Antony Jay and Jonathan
Lynn, ran for 37 half hour episodes with a one hour Christmas special in
1984 and was nominated for a host of BAFTAs, picking up seven – four
went to Sir Nigel for best light entertainment performance – and was
voted sixth in a poll of best sitcoms. When it ended in January 1988 Jim
and Sir Humphrey were in deep trouble after Jim was caught inadvertently
lying to the House. For younger readers who thought that was now the
norm for ministers and MPS, in 1988 lying to the House was still seen as
a heinous crime which had ended the careers of a number of leading
politicians. So, we were left with Jim Hacker facing the
prospect of back bench anonymity and Sir Humphrey taking his pension,
and no doubt a few lucrative city directorships, off into the sunset –
until last year that is when the writers decided he should have another
shot at the power game.
Now Los Angeles-based and better known as a
director of such Hollywood hits as My Cousin Vinny and The
Whole Nine Yards, Lynn, 67, started life as an actor and is thrilled
to be back, writing and directing the new Yes, Prime Minister
play. Jay, meanwhile, is over the moon finally to be working in theatre
after a life-time of broadcasting. “My father was an actor and my mother was an actress so I grew up with the assumption that the most honourable thing human beings could achieve was to give work to actors,” says the octogenarian. “I never imagined I would first have something on the stage after my 80th birthday!”
“I`m no spring chicken either,” chips in Lynn. “Between us we're probably the oldest duo ever to be making our playwriting debut!” As it turns out, the idea of adapting Yes, Prime Minister for the stage was first floated while the show was still on TV. “Paul and Nigel couldn't commit for long enough though,” recalls Jay, “and we couldn't have anyone else in those days. It had to be Paul and Nigel, or nothing.” Only after both actors had died [in 1995 and 2001 respectively] and stage versions of TV started to become popular that Lynn and Jay were approached about adapting some old episodes. “We thought about it and realised we'd rather do a completely new play.” A new story is one thing. But new actors playing such iconic roles? It was a big risk, but happily one that paid off. David Haig and Henry Goodman received rave reviews when the play premiered at Chichester Festival Theatre this summer and again for autumn West End transfer. Lynn has high hopes for his new touring cast, too. “Although they are new faces and the characters were much beloved in their previous incarnation, we've found the audience accepts them within minutes,” he marvels. “Strange as it sounds, I was inspired by the fact that Daniel Craig has been an even more successful Bond than Sean Connery. It made me think: perhaps Jim and Humphrey aren't defined by the actors playing them, but by the characters themselves.” And what characters! Jim, power-hungry like all politicians, but so keen to do right and so capable of going wrong. And Sir Humphrey, omniscient, omnipresent and never shy of using a Greek word where an English one would do. When Lynn and Jay started work on the new script at Jay's Somerset farmhouse last year, even they were surprised by how quickly the characters came back to them. “I don't think we ever lost them,” says Jay. “I've always been the guardian of Humphrey's soul and Jonny the guardian of Jim's. So when we were trying to work out a scene, I'd say: ‘Jim would do this.' And Jonny would be able to say: ‘No, he wouldn't'. And vice versa. The thing evolved like role play.” Lynn
laughs: “I think it's fair to say that Tony is like Sir Humphrey: a
classicist from Cambridge, who became the equivalent of a civil servant
in his job at the BBC. I, on the other hand, am like Jim Hacker, an
idealist who fails to live up to my ideals, what Graham Green called a
‘whisky priest'. But I try." “Only, we didn't show the right way to do things; we got all the fun we could out of showing the wrong way! The idea of making fun of politics wasn't new but there was no satire of this sort on TV. You have to remember that back in the 1980s, no one knew what was going on behind all that red tape. The idea that Whitehall had more power than Westminster was a revelation.” David Haig, right, and Henry Goodman in the original stage production Lynn nods in agreement: “The public knew nothing and the reason? The Official Secrets Act. Our first source book for the show were the diaries of Richard Crossman, Minister for Housing in Wilson's government from 1964-70. On the very first page, Crossman notes that when his private secretary says: ‘Yes, Minister', what he actually means is ‘No, Minister'. That was our title right there! The government tried to censor the book. But the Sunday Times took the case to court and won the right to serialise it. And then we came along!” Now that the Official Secrets Act has been all but superseded by the Freedom of Information Act and a new Coalition government has been installed in the Commons, has the Whitehall-Westminster dynamic at the heart of the show changed? “In degree rather than type,” answers Jay. "Most politicians are still absolutely focused on getting re-elected rather than running the country or achieving the kind of society we should have. There's plenty of spin of course, but as Yes, Minister showed, there always was. I don't think the fundamental relationship has changed, no. If anything, the preoccupation with power has become more naked and all-consuming.” The show still works, says Jay, because Jim and
Humphrey are universal types. “People's behaviour is formed by their
circumstances and by the rewards and punishments given out to them.
Humphrey and Jim are conditioned both by what they are trying to achieve
and what they are trying to avoid. You can move the thing forward in
time, with everyone holding blackberries and talking about global
warming. But they're still Jim and Humphrey, the same characters they
were 30 years ago.” Of course, adds Lynn: "Jim has been in power for
quite a long time now so he's a little more in control. He also has a
special advisor, or SPAD, in the character of Claire Sutton, which
reflects a new reality in Whitehall. SPADS exist to prevent the civil
service making ugly mistakes. Only as it turns out, Claire makes the
worst mistake of all!” The current satirical coalition of Sir Humphrey Appleby (Simon Williams) and Jim Hacker (Richard McCabe) taking politics to the people “Hardly at all," says Jay. "You have to remember the show was originally filmed in front of a studio audience. So we always wrote for laughs." The main issue, according to Lynn, is how to maintain a story that is two hours long, rather than 28 minutes. “It's like switching from short stories to a novel! At first it seems as though there are all these different strands, from the BBC to global warming to gas lines to a foreign minister's dodgy request. But all these things are interwoven as the play reaches its conclusion. What we needed was a story that sustained itself, not just a collection of episodes.” Famously, the original Yes, Minister was Margaret Thatcher's favourite TV show and this new play is proving no less popular with Parliament now. Why does it hold such appeal for Westminster? Says Jay: “Politicians like hearing things about themselves. It makes them feel important. Also, I know that for an awful lot of Labour politicians, really all they knew about government when they started in 1997 was what they'd seen on Yes, Minister.” But what of the general public, who would never tune into BBC Parliament but flock to this show in droves? “We stumbled across a timeless comedy formula when we created these characters,” reasons Lynn. “That formula is the master who is less able than the servant. It's the same as Jeeves and Wooster, the same as Carlo Goldoni's Servant of Two Masters. It goes back through the ages and people identify with it. People are also sick to death of hearing politicians lying or telling half-truths, and they love to see that ridiculed.” A fact others have played on since, notably Armando Iannucci in his corruscating satire The Thick of It, which the Daily Telegraph called a “Yes, Minister for the Labour Years.” Which is not to say Lynn and Jay's original was about the Tories. Jim Hacker's party allegiance was always kept willfully opaque. What, in any case, do they make of Iannucci's show and his self-confessed debt to their script. “It's really funny but completely different from what we do,” says Lynn. “It's the system that we're satirising, not the individuals. We're not Spitting Image either. But I'm gratified by his comments and I'd like to think he's been inspired by us to do his own thing.” “One of the things that distinguishes us from
The Thick of It,” adds Jay, “is that we actually like our central
characters. You don't feel that Iannucci really likes Malcolm Tucker,
but we're very fond of Jim and Humphrey and if we were in their
position, let's face it, we'd pretty much be doing what they're doing.
Our motivation with Yes, Prime Minister isn't to change the
world, it's to point out its absurdities. We just want people to have a
good laugh.” |
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Yes,
Prime Minister arrived on the stage of the Hippodrome this week
with our nation's leader Jim Hacker boldly leading the nation in
any direction Sir Humphrey Appleby wishes him to go – which is usually a
journey which starts and ends somewhere around the status quo. Creators
Sir Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn explain why they decided to bring
politics' best known double act back twenty three years after they left
our screens.
