TO the cynical truism, that whoever you vote for, the Government always wins, can now be added a comedic one - whoever's in government, Alan B'Stard will come to power.
And so it is that Rik Mayall's unscrupulous and Machiavellian comic creation has finally come to office at Number 9 Downing Street - a back passage into the corridors of power - from where he is running the country.
This is a real treat for fans of Mayall and The New Statesman alike, while the fact that the comedy is as funny now as it was in its first incarnation in 1987 - and just as appropriate - is an indication of just how far the Blair administration has fallen from grace.
It is not only the Mayall factor which makes this so funny, although all his trademark ticks and quirks delight the audience. It is also in the quality of the writing and the sheer effrontery of the other characters.
The obligatory powerful woman for B'Stard to get his rocks off by drooling over, is none other than Condoleezza Rice (Alexandra Gunn), who strides in, all sophisticated power-suit dress and high-heels, only to display her complete ignorance of geography in a sub-plot about invading Norway for its oil.
B'Stard's whipping boy is now an old-school socialist of a Junior Minister, Frank, on whom B'Stard holds details of some past indiscretion. Nothing as obscene or self-aggrandising as anything which B'Stard is quite happy to boast about, but enough for him to be crushed at any point.
If Frank, played by Clive Hayward, is not as well drawn as his predecessor, he still serves to provide plenty of slapstick moments, augmented by a complicated set of filing cabinets and drawers which, on the opening night, collapsed, giving Mayall and Hayward plenty of opportunities to go off-script.
Drooling over women was never enough for B'Stard. As his wife Sarah (Marsha Fitzalan) is now suing for divorce, Helen Baker's appearance as Flora, a New Labour neophyte and political advisor to Tony Blair, completes the necessary sexual groupings, although even she is not enough to stop B'Stard playing around with internet porn.
B'Stard has been away long enough to bring in a whole raft of political themes from the last decade, while the format allows up-to-the-minute topical gags to be thrown in. The wisdom of bringing it to the Playhouse is not, however, so obvious. In such a cavernous space, the lines tend to become lost and the end result is not as sharp as it could be.
Run ends Saturday