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.
