Dinosaurs stride the earth… just about

REVIEW: I’m Sorry Prime Minister – Malvern Theatres (Tuesday, July 28 to Saturday, August 1). Matinees 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday.

Showtime! stars rating: *  *  *  *  *

HOW are the mighty fallen. Yes, the celebrated double act may indeed be dinosaurs, coping with the catastrophic impact of a woke meteor striking their planet, but this dying breed still appears to be wheezing signs of life.

And magnificently so, as it happens, as we once again meet former prime minister Jim Hacker reunited with the man who actually ran the country back in the glory days, the wily and eloquent Sir Humphrey.

But sadly, the times they have a-changed. Absolute power can no longer be taken for granted, for news reaches the mothballed Hacker that the college which takes his name has ‘cancelled’ him, the charge being that he may have said something several hundred years ago that has upset the privileged pipsqueaks of Oxford’s daydreaming spires.

The bad news is delivered by the Grim Reaper aka Sir David, portrayed with a deathly solemnity by the cadaverous William Chubb. Announcing himself as a judge, he is a statuesque doomsayer that one can easily imagine donning the black cap of execution.

Hacker meets all our expectations. He is played with a magnificent, relentless fustiness by Robert Kitson, who we first encounter slumped in his retirement mansion, the buttons on his cardigan done up wrong, slippers stretched taut over gout-ridden feet, and with a drinks cabinet primed for action.

As some of us have always known, it’s not politicians who run the country – they are plainly all too stupid for such a monumental task – rather it’s the civil servants, Sir Humphrey being a prime example of the breed.

Indeed, he would probably have made a far better politician, had not occupational hazards such as basic honesty and decency got in the way.

Anyway, enter Sir Humphrey, played with a delicious sense of diplomacy and a bottomless well of cunning by Clive Francis. It’s not long before he’s sussed the situation and ever-so-politely tangled with Hacker’s care worker Sophie (Princess Donnough) who’s superficially long-suffering… well, up to a degree.

At one point, during an exchange about the British Empire, slavery and other allied topics, he suggests that Sophie could write a book. After all, it’s bound to be published as she ticks all the boxes, being black, lesbian and shouty-group-think left wing.

Jonathan Lynn’s keenly observed script never falters for a single moment. Unafraid to introduce topics that would ordinarily raise temperatures to boiling point in our post-free speech society, Lynn deftly steers the dialogue into calmer waters after each verbal broadside. It’s extraordinary in fact, because he does so by cleansing the conversations of all the inevitable hate and anger infecting what now passes for debate in present-day Britain.

However, regarding the more pressing matter of the no-platforming spoiled brats issue, Sir Humphrey – with a heady mixture of oratory and poetic use of language - slowly convinces Hacker that he cannot Canute his way through the relentless tide of wokery now engulfing all areas of public life.

It’s a masterclass in how the British Establishment really works, with Hacker’s meagre talents once again placed in the shade by the manipulative civil servant with the silver-tongue and set, serpentine expression.

Yes, it might be five minutes to midnight for a species on the brink of extinction, but as Jonathan Lynn demonstrates, there’s life in these characters yet. Fast-paced and endlessly amusing, I’m Sorry Prime Minister is a triumph from beginning to end.