Who was this country's greatest Prime Minister? Winston Churchill? Margaret Thatcher? Liz Truss? Stop sniggering at the back. Or maybe Jim Hacker, the fictional star of classic 1980s BBC sitcom Yes, Minister who rose to take the highest office in the land in Yes, Prime Minister. And now Hacker is back. Onstage in I'm Sorry, Prime Minister, with the role originated by the late Paul Eddington played by Griff Rhys Jones.
It is another career swerve for the versatile 71-year-old comic and actor. Rhys Jones was famous for being half of a double act with Mel Smith, who died, aged 60, in 2013. In I'm Sorry, Prime Minister he is in a new double act, with Clive Francis as his smooth talking permanent secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby. "I adore Clive. The idea of forming a relationship with an actor is one of the greatest joys of doing a play together," says Rhys Jones.
