Bold opening: Even icons of power can become endearing fossils of wit when the world has moved on—and that struggle is at the heart of I’m Sorry, Prime Minister. The revival finds Griff Rhys Jones’s Jim Hacker insisting he isn’t dead, even as the political game has clearly left him behind. He’s in the House of Lords now and, amusingly, is also the head of an Oxford college—until students, stirred by woke critiques, threaten to oust him from that sinecure. In Jonathan Lynn’s elegiac farewell to his beloved Yes, Prime Minister duo, Hacker rops in his old adviser Sir Humphrey to bail him out one last time.
Lynn doesn’t just adapt; he co-directs, with Michael Gyngell, carrying forward a staging that first appeared in Cirencester’s Barn Theatre in 2023. The production’s ambition, hinted by Hacker’s care worker Sophie when she quotes Shelley’s Ozymandias, is to probe what becomes of the mighty after their fall: Hacker and Sir Humphrey, now exiled from the corridors of power, struggle to navigate a world they barely recognize. Sir Humphrey’s fate—consigned to a care home by his “evil queen” daughter-in-law—adds a touch of poignancy, yet the show rarely dwells on sentiment. Instead, it relies on urbane wit and the illicit thrill of hearing two elderly statesmen utter improper things.
At its less successful moments, the play can feel more like a platform for telling rather than showing—Lynn and company occasionally drift into extended debates about trigger warnings and safe spaces. Stephanie Levi-John brings energy to Sophie, a thankless role that keeps nudging the elders toward self-awareness. Rhys Jones and Clive Francis are a proper delight: Hacker’s bluster and pomp, Humphrey’s sly frailty and filibustering elan, both rendered with affectionate mischief.
Their situation is deliberately low-stakes: the plot advances in languid conversational gambits rather than dramatic catastrophe. Yet Lynn’s lens on aging, obsolescence, and the subtle leveling effect of time is arresting, and the two leads remain as charming as ever, offering a final, polished bow to fans of the original pairing.
