London: Nov 24: Yes, Prime Minister

I felt sick on Wednesday, November 24, 2010, and hence stayed home most of the day. For lunch, I ventured out to my nearby high street near Queens Park to eat at a decent cafe, Jack's, that I've previously visited but didn't photograph. This time I had my camera and took three pictures.

In late afternoon, I headed down to the office to meet some coworkers for dinner. I had bought Di Yin and I tickets weeks before to join a theatre club outing to see a stage version of Yes, Prime Minister, a 1980s British comedy about politics and civil service.

Some of us decided to have dinner together before the show. We headed to Chinatown, which is in the West End (the theatre district) conveniently close to the theatre, Gielgud Theatre. The restaurant we ended up at was perfectly bleh (typical unflavored "Americanized"-Chinese food for people with no taste and no idea of the alternatives). I wasn't surprised given my impression of London's Chinatown from walking through it before. Nevertheless, dinner was fun, with interesting people and conversation. I was surprised to see that none of my dinner companions were British despite the show being distinctly British. (Everyone at dinner had moved to London within the previous couple of years.)

The show was pretty good and certainly funny. Until I got into it, I was distracted by the beautiful set, particularly the pretty trees seen through the minister's window and also the bookcase. Of course, once I got into the show, I didn't notice the set much.

The acting was good; the actors really played their parts both physically and vocally.

The core philosophy underlying the show is that the civil service is a force to be reckoned with. Bureaucracy has a lot of power.

The show comments on politics, media, morals, civil service, cultural relativism, patriotism, selfishness, and education. Although there were many messages, two statements about modern politics come to mind as I'm writing this post. One, everyone (politicians, civil servants) is happy at the end even though nothing actually has been done. Two, for some large segment of the play, the politicians and civil service work together, spending a while trying to solve a problem that it turns out to be already too late to solve.

Incidentally, I was amused to see that all the people who played media types are really tall. This must've been intentional.