For Britons interested in politics, 25 February 1980 was a great night in. BBC One had a Panorama on the faltering White House bid of former film star Ronald Reagan, followed by a Nine O’Clock News bulletin with the latest on a gathering Tory party rebellion against Margaret Thatcher. And, opposite the news, BBC Two showed the first ever episode of the sitcom Yes Minister, about a weak cabinet minister, Jim Hacker, who is the puppet of his chief civil servant, Sir Humphrey Appleby.
Previews were lukewarm, mainly because the BBC had curiously not shown the programme to the press, possibly due to the Corporation’s historic and continuing terror of anything touching on the government. Most previewers felt that Paul Eddington as the politician and Nigel Hawthorne playing the permanent secretary were the main reasons to tune in. The first overnight review, in the Guardian, found the show “not the sharpest” but felt it “deserved nursing”. A few episodes in, the Observer noted that the comedy was causing “quite a stir” but gave a “false impression of the civil service”.
All the politicians in that TV evening defied expectations. Reagan served two full presidential terms, Thatcher stayed in power for another decade. And now, 43 years later, the Hacker-Appleby story has climaxed – on stage, at the Barn theatre in Cirencester.
The play I’m Sorry, Prime Minister, I Can’t Quite Remember is subtitled “The Final Chapter”. The first of the scripts to be written by Jonathan Lynn alone – after the death in 2016 of co-creator Antony Jay, to whose memory the show is dedicated – this is the fifth phase in the franchise. Previously, there were 23 episodes of Yes Minister (1980-84) and 16 of Yes, Prime Minister (1986-88). For a 2010 stage play that spun off into a TV series on Gold, the late Eddington and Hawthorne were replaced by David Haig and Henry Goodman respectively.
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