A POLITICAL lifetime seems to have passed since this wonderful satire burst on to our television screens in the 1980s.

Back then, Margaret Thatcher was hand-bagging her yes-men, those famous stentorian tones melting away even the merest hint of collective decision… or shudder to think of it, any notion of expressing an honest opinion.

But if the years go by and the faces change, then the nature of the beast stays very much the same. Once, it was right because SHE said so – then it was right if HE merely thought it was right.

Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn have done a wonderful rewrite and update with this biting, cynical look at the British power base, perfectly lampooning the eternal theme of expediency and the art of the possible.

Simon Williams as Sir Humphrey Appleby deserves several gongs for the portrayal of his character, faithfully devoted to massaging the monstrous ego of Prime Minister Jim Hacker.

Hacker increasingly turns into Basil Fawlty as Appleby soothes the top man’s brow with any oily-tongued platitude that springs to mind. Meanwhile, Charlotte Lucas, as special policy adviser Claire Sutton, struts and pouts here way through routine matters of state such as the need to procure an underage girl for a greasy oil state ambassador in order to clinch an all-important deal.

Yes, it’s all familiar stuff. Everything is thrown into the mix, from God to excusing illegal sex. Politicians, it seems, are indeed the self-serving hypocrites that many of us have suspected all along.

Even principal private secretary Bernard Woolley, played with mounting exasperation by Chris Larkin, decides that if you can’t beat a born-again Christian then you might as well join them and get down on your knees and pray.

Yes, Prime Minister runs until tomorrow, Saturday, April 9.

John Phillpott