Jeeves and Wooster: The BBC series

Making a TV or Film based on PG Wodehouse’s books is, at the best of times a risky enterprise, inviting thankless comparisons to the originals. That is what I kept telling myself repeatedly while watching the BBC adaptation “Jeeves and Wooster”. It was Bill Clinton that said that “What’s wrong with America can be fixed by what’s right with America”. That statement could apply quite easily to this series.

The TV adaptation has many things going for it. Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster is stupendously brilliant. No one else could have played this role better, not even the real Bertie Wooster, had he existed. When I saw him singing “Back in Nagasaki”, I almost wept, such is the man’s talent.

The roaring-20s theme music and title animation are delightful. With eyes shining and lips parted in pleasant anticipation - much like Lord Emsworth’s while returning to visit the Empress after a tedious London trip- I waited for each episode to begin. I almost could see Bertie Wooster and friends lunching, dining and taking hapless girls out dancing. And Bertie’s Astor Martin is great eye-candy.

Lest you think that this is all too much hyperbole for one blog post, let me balance the score by pointing out the things that distressed me deeply:
Slapstick! Why, in the name of all that’s holy, would you not let Wodehousian humor stand on its own, and instead dilute it with slapstick? I’m talking about Madeline Bassett rolling her eyes and lisping in a completely overdone way. Yes, Madeline is supposed to be a Gawd-help-us, but a girl who routinely says that the stars are God’s daisy chain does not need slapstick to enhance her goofiness. Another casualty is Bingo Little, whose character was positively massacred in the series. I refer especially to his distinctly unfunny antics in the episode where he competes in a race with old people (Wails of anguish).

Why, oh why, did they combine 2 or more stories in a single episode? It made the plots hopelessly unwieldy and sometimes almost unrecognizable, and not in a good way. And what hubris was it that possessed the director/ script writer/ whoever-did-the-deed to insert their own plotlines from time to time? Like the episode where Tuppy Glossop is trying to hawk cars to Pauline Stoker and her father? In fact, they made Tuppy - he of the steak-and-kidney pie fame - a marketer of dubious schemes: cars, soups, and possibly elephants. In short, a sort of Proto-Amway Man.

The Verdict: What’s right with the series manages to balance what’s wrong, but just about, no thanks to the director and script writer. Hugh Laurie and Wodehouse’s genius compensate for the negatives.

Tip for future Wodehouse TV/ movie makers: Take the Wodehouse plot line and stick to it like glue. Die-hard Wodehouse fans are not looking for innovation and the others don’t matter.

Funny in Farsi

By Firoozeh Dumas

You could say that Firoozeh Dumas’ book Funny in Farsi is about the immigrant experience in America, but it is certainly not as boring as that sounds. You could say that this book is about people of different countries and religions behaving with humanity and tolerance towards one another, but it is not as preachy as that sounds. You could call this book a laugh riot, and you’d be dead right.

Firoozeh’s Iranian family is a Farsi version of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” with dozens of uncles, aunts and assorted cousins, all of whom live within short driving distances of each other in Southern California and enjoy each others’ company and rally around one another in times of need and otherwise. There’s Firoozeh’s kind and loving Aunt Sedigeh and scholarly Uncle Abdullah, who has not figured out how not to delete files on his computer (“You just have to say “No” when the computer asks you if you are sure you want to delete the file, but the computer unfortunately does not ask Uncle Abdullah). Her mother’s English remains very shaky despite living several decades in Southern California, and she uses Firoozeh as her translator all though her adolescence, much to the teenager’s embarrassment.

Above all, there is her extremely eccentric and lovable father Kazem, who is the life of this book. Kazem loves to go to Vegas and gamble in hopes of winning wealth, but losing only increases his determination to play. Among his many gambling superstitions is that “non-Americans at the table are bad luck” notwithstanding the fact that he is one himself. America, the Land of the Free is, to him, the land of free samples and trips to San Diego and Santa Barbara (free with timeshare seminar sales pitches).

Of course, the Iranian experience in America cannot really be free of the shadow of the Revolution of 1979, especially the hostage crisis. Firoozeh’s father suffers through a period of unemployment and prejudice during this period when anything “I-raynian” was deeply mistrusted. There are some why-can’t-we-always-get-along passages, which could easily have become annoying if it was not for the writer’s skill in combining humor with potentially more preachy stuff. One might argue that she glosses over some of the more serious aspects of the Iran-US relationship (or the lack thereof), but this is, after all, supposed to be a funny take on an Iranian’s experience in the US and not a critical analysis of the relationship between the US and Iran, so I did not miss the lack of serious discussion.

The greatest thing about this book is Firoozeh’s language – at times making fun of her adopted country, at times making fun of her native country, and at times self-deprecating. If you read too fast, you might miss savoring some of the really funny stuff. I leave you with some of my favorite quotes:

While referring to the hole-in-the ground toilets in the market of her native Abadan – “If odor could be measured in decibels, these toilets were the equivalent of front-row seats at a heavy metal concert”.

While lamenting the unpronounceability of her/ her family’s names – “Nobody without a mask and a cape has a Z in his name” in America.

“My one memory of a family excursion to an art museum ended with my father asking ‘Did we have to pay to get into this place’” – (no doubt at a modern art museum)

“Having grown up in California I had always heard about the big one, the inevitable huge earthquake that awaited all of us who chose to live in sunshine instead of reason”

Referring to her objection to eating fried turtles as delicacies – “I draw the line at any animal that features in Aesop’s Fables”.