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The issues change a bit over 30 years, but not as much as you might think. Britain is still uncomfortable about its place in Europe which, in turn, seems perpetually on the brink of implosion. The "special relationship" with the United States has yet to be satisfactorily defined.
Sex scandals hover over the government like bats. And Prime Minister Jim Hacker (or someone very much like him) is still battling cabinet secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby, always uncomfortably aware that although he has been elected, he is not really running the country.
London audiences have been packing out Yes, Prime Minister, a theatrical version of the famous television series that ended in 1987. Antony Jay, a former BBC political editor who wrote the series with his friend Jonathan Lynn, says they always fancied doing a play, but that they only returned to it because they had been asked if they would adapt some old episodes for the stage. "And we thought, 'Oh well, can't we do better than that?'" They wrote the bulk of Yes, Prime Minister in 10 days.
© Fairfax Media
