The Barn Theatre in Cirencester has announced complete casting for its upcoming revival of Yes, Prime Minister, running from 28 August to 3 October with a national press night on 1 September.

Jay Villiers leads the company as Jim Hacker, the beleaguered prime minister facing economic collapse and party infighting. Clive Hayward takes on Sir Humphrey Appleby, the civil servant whose Machiavellian command of bureaucratic language remains the show's comic engine. William Owen plays Bernard Woolley, the principal private secretary caught between the two. Ruth Gibson steps into the role of Claire Sutton, the prime minister's policy advisor.

Rounding out the company, Maurey Richards plays Gordon the American Ambassador and the Cameraman, while Mark Stratton takes the dual roles of Jeremy Burnham and Simon Chester. The full casting was announced on 31 July by WhatsOnStage.

Charlotte Westenra directs the production, which marks the debut of RUFF Theatre as a producing company at the Barn. The stage version of Yes, Prime Minister uses a different story from the original television series but keeps the same comedic bite, according to the Barn Theatre's production page. The series was written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, whose satirical double act — a politician who thinks he is in charge and a mandarin who knows he is not — has been a fixture of British comedy since the 1980s.

The creative team behind the revival is all-female: Anna Kelsey on set and costume design, Jodie Underwood on lighting, and Elizabeth Purnell on sound. The Barn Theatre, a regional venue in the Cotswold market town of Cirencester, has built a reputation for staging commercially minded revivals of classic British comedies and dramas since it opened in 2018.

For audiences, the revival offers a chance to see one of the most enduring satirical partnerships in British television writing staged live in an intimate 200-seat space. The premise — a prime minister who cannot get anything done because the civil service will not let him — is one that has not exactly aged out of relevance.