Yes, Prime Minister: Re-elected Page #8

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these lines done by Sunday?"

But then that's,

that's just what actors have to do

to get it right, you know.

If you're not scared,

you're not going to get it right.

Will Scotland join the EU?

We're already in the EU, Jim.

No, we are.

You won't be when you leave the UK,

you'll have to apply for membership.

Which would mean, of course,

joining the euro.

But you won't mind that, will you?

Ooh!

The euro.

Mmm!

That would be a good thing

to join now, wouldn't it?

HE PARPS AND GURGLES

HE LAUGHS:

Can we have the groat back, please?

Where is the satire around

this Government going to settle?

Is it Cameron/Clegg?

Is it, um, is, is it Osborne?

I can't... is it Bullingdon Club?

I can't quite...

Oh, no.

It's going to be who gets

credit for the good bits

and who gets

the blame for the bad bits.

But when it comes to it,

as you get closer to the election,

the jockeying that will go on,

and there'll be lots of fun as

to how, how one side or the other,

one minister or the other,

can pretend that this was all them,

and it wouldn't have happened

if it had been left to the others.

That will be, that will be

the interesting satire.

Who delivered?

Whose idea was it?

As you, as you take it forward,

the one thing about coalition you

never have,

we've got two unusual things.

We've got a fixed term parliament,

so 7th of May, 2015,

the next election day.

So how have you got, you know,

I can imagine as Cabinet Secretary,

Sir Humphrey saying,

trying to keep the show on the road,

keep everybody together.

But actually, the two parties wanting

to differentiate their product,

and say, "Well, actually,

we did all the good bits,

"and that was cos of that lot."

Michael, your old department, how

do you think you would have managed

a coalition department?

A bit like I managed

the other departments,

because all governments

are coalitions.

I mean, if you are a Prime Minister,

you preside over a party

but every party's a coalition,

and every government has to be

balanced to reflect geography,

sex, region, you know,

the principalities,

whatever it may be, and...

Sex particularly, really.

THEY GIGGLE:

Well, this, you know, I think

we can agree with us, unanimous,

across the party spectrum, that sex

is here to stay, under all parties.

I mean, let's not get controversial

about that, for God's sake.

And we've got Fifty Shades of Grey

around the table, looking at you.

Very good, Gus.

Well that's

getting a bit, bit, err...

What I'll be really interested to

see is whether, whether he tweets.

And whether, and whether

the Permanent Secretary tweets!

I can absolutely guarantee the

Permanent Secretary will not tweet.

Some civil servants tweet.

They do.

They do.

Perhaps the first episode will be

about him coming to terms

with social media.

There are people working for

government whose responsibility

is advising on tweeting and all

those things.

We may today have designed

the first programme.

Perhaps one of the most memorable

elements of Yes, Prime Minister is

the hand-drawn title sequence.

For

this brand new series, world-famous

satirical artist Gerald Scarfe has

returned to wave his magic pencil

over the faces of the new cast.

It has to look something like

the old titles so people

can recognise it

but obviously it has to

have a fresh, new approach.

At the moment, I'm feeling my way.

I'm here today sketching

the characters

so I get some kind of

feeling of them.

A caricature comes from the

character of the person themselves

and it's not just a face

with a big nose.

David here, I haven't quite got.

He's got these black, smiling eyes.

But being an actor, he's moving all

the time.

He's changing all the time.

That's the value of coming here and

seeing them because if you look at

a photograph, it's not moving, if you

look at them, their face is

malleable the whole time.

I'm not the sort of artist who maps

it all out in pencil first then

slavishly goes over the lines.

I work very impulsively and

therefore never quite know what

it's going to look like eventually.

After 18 months of preparation and

weeks of meticulous rehearsal,

the team records the new series of

Yes, Prime Minister in front of 320

eagerly-awaiting audience members.

Sorry, I'm late.

It's been a

terrible day.

Any particular reason?

You've read about the Cabinet split?

Yes.

And you've seen what's

happened to the FTSE?

Yes.

And

the pound?

Yes.

And the inflation

forecast?

Yes.

And the rising

unemployment figures?

Yes.

So how

many particular reasons do you want?

I'll be tuning in.

I'll be watching

it again and again.

I'll be taking notes.

And wishing...

It was only when

I was doing my political science

degree at university, that if I'd

seen all this before I'd written

my papers, I'd have been much better

informed.

I might have got a better degree.

Did that mean yes or no?

I will certainly be tuning in

to the new series.

I hope to get a job on it.

HE LAUGHS:

Don't you think that "yes" and "no"

are rather unspecific in their

application?

I thought it went very well.

I:

thought they were very good audience.

I thought the actors

were wonderful,

but then I expect

nothing less of this great cast.

The first night went brilliantly.

It's fantastic to have an audience

out there.

Which brings it to life, so relieved

that it's over and pleased

that they enjoyed it.

I thought it went very well.

It's a

great feeling.

We both struggle away

with our characters for weeks of

rehearsal and then we get to this

moment where the audience lift the

lid off.

Don't you feel that, Henry?

It's nice to be buoyed up.

I feel buoyed up by the audience's

affection for these characters.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Coming back and doing this show

was fun.

I hope it goes on being as much fun

as it was today.

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