Jim Hacker is back in the West End. I’m Sorry, Prime Minister, written by Jonathan Lynn (who co-wrote the original TV series), brings us the former PM in semi-retirement as the Master of Hacker College, Oxford. Jim, now Lord Hacker, is facing a revolt by the students and the senior fellows who claim to have been offended by his high-table banter. He was overheard making positive comments about the British Raj and suggesting that the word ‘negro’ should not be expurgated from the work of James Baldwin. Both opinions are blasphemous according to the killjoy theocrats who govern our political discourse. Jim is ordered to quit his post but he refuses and the college authorities offer him a chilling compromise. He may continue as Master if he agrees to make no statements whatever, on any subject at all, even in private, without the prior approval of the college’s thought police. This repressive bargain develops into an amusing battle of wits when Jim telephones his old pal Sir Humphrey and enlists his help against the college.

The first act motors along beautifully but the second stalls over historical issues like Brexit

The first act motors along beautifully but the second stalls over historical issues like Brexit

Griff Rhys Jones plays Jim as a rumpled Falstaffian folk hero, honking out his lines with schoolboy........

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