Yes, Prime Minister at St James Theatre

Yes, Prime Minister won the West End Best New Comedy award and producer Andrew Guild says like the classic television series “this West End hit is very witty, very fast paced, very clever and very unpredictable”.

Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn penned the first episodes of Yes Minister for the BBC in 1982. It was an instant hit – their characters and situations revealing the deliciously awkward marriage between civil servants and politicians. More than 25 years later, the same brilliant wordsmiths have done it again and created the hit play Yes, Prime Minister.

It’s 2012 and much has happened since the Rt. Hon. Jim Hacker last walked the corridors of Whitehall. There’s the Global Financial Crisis, rising oil prices, minority governments, illegal immigrant, asylum seekers and climate change. Plus the 24 hour news cycle, constant bleating of mobile phones, endless emails and a new generation of spin doctors.

Ably assisted by Cabinet Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby and Principal Private Secretary Bernard Woolley, these three most loved characters from the hit BBC series gather once more to sort out another very thorny problem.

Set in the present day, in the oak-panelled drawing room at Chequers, the British Prime Minister’s official country residence, the embattled PM, Sir Humphrey and Bernard face their greatest challenge yet. With help and hindrance from inquisitive journalists, a new generation of special advisors, the Director General of the BBC and an oil rich Ambassador with a most disturbing interest in foreign affairs, the play engages audiences with the best of comedy and the worst of politics.

“Yes Prime Minister is an absorbing, very contemporary comedy that forces us at the same time to confront real moral issues, but never preaches,” Mr Guild says. “We leave laughing – and we’ve got enough material for water cooler conversations to last for weeks.”