IF present day Federal politics is a bit too grim and confrontational for you, the Canberra Theatre Centre has the perfect antidote in the stage version of “Yes, Prime Minister” coming here from March 21-24 next year.

There’ll be nothing “courageous” about this enterprise for the entrepreneurs, if past staged TV shows like “Allo Allo” are anything to go by.

On the contrary, it’s expected to sell-out.

Philip Quast, best known for his roles in big musicals, will play Canberrans’ favourite part, the suave and cynical Cabinet Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, while Mark Owen-Taylor will play the hapless, non-Oxbridge-educated Prime Minister, Jim Hacker.

To complete the trio, John Lloyd Fillingham plays the PM’s personal secretary, Bernard Woolley, a role that many people in this town know is absolutely true to life.

So true so that, as has been recently reported, watching “Yes Minister” was part of the formal selection process for the 1992 DFAT graduate intake.

In one round of the selection process candidates were shown half an episode. As the predicament before Sir Humphrey unfolded, the TV was switched off and the group asked to form a circle.

They then spent the next 30 minutes discussing: “What would you do?”

As for the stage play, it has been penned by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, who wrote the first episodes of “Yes Minister” for the BBC back in 1982. Their new spin on an old subject was premièred at London’s Gielgud Theatre.

Somehow Jay and Lynn have brought the characters into 2011, with the GFC, rising oil prices, minority governments, illegal immigrants global warming and the 24 hour news cycles, constant bleating of mobile phones, emails, tweets and spin doctors.

We’ll all just have to wait and see how Jim, Sir Humphrey and Bernard gird their loins to face political life as we now know it.

“Yes, Prime Minister”, Canberra Theatre,  March 21-24, booking to 6275 2700 or  canberratheatrecentre.com.au