Yes, Prime Minister (2013 TV Series)

''Yes, Prime Minister'' is a British political satire sitcom from 2013, written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn. The series is a revival of the sitcom ''Yes, Prime Minister'', which ran from 1986 to 1988. It stars David Haig as Prime Minister Jim Hacker, Henry Goodman as Sir Humphrey, Chris Larkin as Bernard Woolley, and Zoe Telford as Claire Sutton. The revived series was based on a 2010 stage production, which was also written by Jay and Lynn.

Plot

Set in Chequers in 2013, the revived series sees Prime Minister Jim Hacker now leading a coalition government. Hacker must use all his wits to deal with economic downturn, his coalition partners having a leadership crisis, and the growing tensions involving Scottish independence.

Characters

Jim Hacker

Jim Hacker (David Haig), formerly the Minister for the fictional Department of Administrative Affairs, became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the special ''Yes Minister'' episode "Party Games". Hacker is prone to potentially embarrassing blunders, and is a frequent target of criticism from the press. However, he is also shown to be relatively politically savvy, and he slowly becomes more aware of his conniving Cabinet Secretary Sir Humphrey's real agenda. Haig's portrayal was more manic than Paul Eddington's had been.

Sir Humphrey Appleby

Sir Humphrey Appleby (Henry Goodman) had been appointed Cabinet Secretary just as Hacker's party entered a leadership crisis, and was instrumental in Hacker's elevation to Prime Minister. Sir Humphrey is a master of obfuscation and manipulation, baffling his opponents with long-winded technical jargon and circumlocutions, strategically appointing allies to supposedly impartial boards, and setting up interdepartmental committees to smother his minister's proposals in red tape. Goodman's Sir Humphrey was more aloof and supercilious than Hawthorne's had been.

Bernard Woolley

Bernard Woolley ( Chris Larkin) is Jim Hacker's Principal Private Secretary. His loyalties are often split between his Minister and his Civil Service boss, Sir Humphrey. He can occasionally appear rather childlike, making animal noises and gestures or by acting out how such an analogy cannot work, which sometimes annoys his Minister. Woolley tends to side with Hacker when new policies are announced, because they seem radical or democratic, only for Sir Humphrey to point out the disadvantages to the status quo and the civil service in particular. He confides in Claire Sutton, Hacker's policy advisor, that he does not mind if Hacker and Humphrey want different things, but finds his job impossible if they want "opposite things".

Claire Sutton

Hacker's young advisor, Claire Sutton (Zoe Telford), was originally introduced in the stage play (then played by Emily Joyce) and was retained for the 2013 television revival. She had a larger role than any of Hacker's other political advisors. Sutton is introduced by the Prime Minister as head of the policy unit at Number 10. She is a twenty-first century successor to Dorothy Wainwright, but less haughty and seemingly more willing to get her hands dirty. She is described by Jay and Lynn as in her late thirties, attractive and intelligent. She calls Hacker by his first name ("Fiscal mechanics, Jim"), whereas Dorothy addressed him as "Prime Minister". In response to a sarcastic interjection about "starving permanent secretaries", Sir Humphrey patronises her as "dear lady" (as he did "that Wainwright female" in the TV series). She acts as Hacker's political ally, and Hacker can rely on her when he needs to make a difficult decision.

Additionally, in keeping with the original series hosting appearances of real broadcasters and newscasters, Sophie Raworth can be seen on a television in the first episode of the series.

Production

Background

Jay and Lynn collaborated again to produce a stage play which ran from 13 May to 5 June 2010, at Chichester Festival Theatre. This production revived at the Gielgud Theatre, in London's West End from 17 September 2010 until 15 January 2011. The principal cast was David Haig as Jim Hacker, Henry Goodman as Sir Humphrey, Jonathan Slinger as Bernard Woolley and Emily Joyce as Claire Sutton, Hacker's special policy adviser. This production, while following the spirit and tone of the original series in many respects, was set contemporaneously at Chequers, the Prime Minister's country residence, with BlackBerrys frequently in evidence, and even included a topical reference to a coalition agreement which Sir Humphrey had drafted (the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats having formed a coalition government in Britain in May 2010). The plot was a little more provocative and ''risqué'' than most of those seen previously (including a debate about the ethics of procuring a twelve-year-old as a sexual partner for a visiting dignitary, a proposition which it is suggested might be spun in the national interest as a "euro-job") and included some stronger expletives (reflecting perhaps their widely reported use among New Labour's hierarchy between 1997 and 2010). There was also a higher element of traditional farce.

The play began a tour of the United Kingdom in February 2011, with Simon Williams as Sir Humphrey, Richard McCabe as Jim Hacker, Chris Larkin as Bernard and Charlotte Lucas as Claire Sutton. It returned to the West End in July 2011 for a ten-week run at the Apollo Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue, with Williams and McCabe reprising their roles. The play then went back on a tour of the United Kingdom before returning to the West End with a revised script. Further rewrites took place before the 2012 UK tour and subsequent Trafalgar Studios run, the crucial change having replaced references from underage to multiple partner sex.

Reflecting in 2011 on the sustained topicality of ''Yes, Minister'' and ''Yes, Prime Minister'', Jonathan Lynn noted that, since the opening of the stage show in Chichester, "all we've added is a couple of jokes about elephone hacking and an extra joke about the Greeks ubject at the time to a debt crisis" He added that the original episodes were written about a year before transmission – "satirical comedy doesn't change" – and that "writing in 1986, we found the same headlines in 1956".

The stage play has been also produced internationally in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur in May 2014 by the British Theatre Playhouse. Additionally, the script of the play, ''Yes, Prime Minister'', was published in paperback by Faber & Faber in 2010 ().

Episodes

The series screened on Gold from 9:00 pm. Each episode ran for a duration of 40 minutes.

Reception

Critical reaction for the series was largely negative. Jay and Lynn revealed that they had offered the show first to the BBC, but that the corporation had asked for a pilot episode which the writers thought was unnecessary in the light of the earlier series. The revived series ended up being produced by the BBC for Gold.

Home media release

On 25 February 2013, the revival series was commercially released for the first time on DVD. Titled ''Yes, Prime Minister'' with a caption "New for 2013" on the front cover, the DVD was distributed by 2 entertain.

See also

* ''House of Cards''
* ''The Thick of It''
* Politics in fiction
* List of fictional prime ministers of the United Kingdom

References

{{Reflist

2010s British political television series
2010s British satirical television series
2010s British multi-camera sitcoms
2010s British workplace comedy television series
2013 British television series debuts
2013 British television series endings
BAFTA winners (television series)
BBC Radio comedy programmes
BBC television sitcoms
British political comedy television series
British television series revived after cancellation
Bureaucracy in fiction
British English-language television shows
Political satirical television series
Television series by BBC Studios
Television series created by Antony Jay
Television series created by Jonathan Lynn
Television shows adapted into novels
Television shows adapted into radio programs
Television shows set in London
Yes Minister