A new Yes, Prime Minister play written and directed by Jonathan Lynn is getting its world premiere at the Barn Theatre in Cirencester.
The comedy will run from 25 September to 4 November 2023.
The play has been written by Jonathan Lynn, one half of the acclaimed writing team who created hugely successfully political satire Yes Minister, and then Yes, Prime Minister on the BBC in the 1980’s.
Lynn’s writing partner Antony Jay died in 2016.
In the play, Jonathan Lynn returns once more to the much loved characters Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby in this final chapter of the series, which sees the pair in their old age facing up to life after their exit from public service.
Holed up in his new home at Hacker College, Oxford, Jim finds himself, as ever, in the midst of a set of problems mainly of his own making. Unsure of how to cope, he calls on his old and not so loyal Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby. What ensues carries all the hallmark comedy of this classic partnership as well as being a touching portrait of two old sparring partners trying desperately to figure out the modern world and work out what their place is in it. In doing so they discover friendship and empathy as well as learning a few hard lessons about life.
Jonathan Lynn said: “I wanted to write the final chapter about Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby, now in their 80s, discarded, ignored, watching today’s world with utter bewilderment. An elegiac play about old age and loss – loss of power, loss of influence, loss of friends, loss of family. The only play I’ve ever seen on this theme is King Lear. This will be funnier.”
A successful stage play – Yes, Prime Minister – premiered at Chichester Festival Theatre in May 2010, and transferred to the West End where it played at three different theatres.
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