Arts > Theatre

Jeeves & Wooster

27/10/14

Jeeves and Wooster

The hapless misadventures of a foolish minor aristocrat and his foppish companions? No, it’s not the recent Tory party convention but a performance of ‘Jeeves and Wooster’.

Of the many collected Jeeves stories by PG Woodhouse, the plot chosen for the play centred on Bertie Wooster’s visit to Totleigh towers and his ill-fated attempts to  steal an eighteenth century silver cow creamer. (It’s a cream jug. Made of silver. Looks like a cow. Made in the eighteenth century. How did you not get that?) For a Woodhouse fan this may seem like a well-trodden path, the same plot having been used for the much overlooked Andrew Lloyd Webber musical ‘By Jeeves’, but this show brings enough originality in its style and approach to keep the audience entertained.

Wooster began the play by talking about how he has seen a few plays and fancied trying out this acting lark. The show was therefore presented as an anecdotal account of one of our favourite fop’s more memorable scrapes which allowed for playful audience interaction throughout. The knowing tone never approached the dreaded realms of ‘literary metafiction’ and stayed firmly rooted in the absurd. This was particularly apparent when Bertie said “Bless you” to a sneezing audience member. The humour remained unashamedly silly with the three actors portraying a spectrum of characters. These range from Constable Oats (the rustic policeman who is regularly mauled by a highland terrier named Bartholomew) to Madeleine Bassett (seductively played by Jeeves draped in a curtain and wearing a lampshade on his head.) The nature of this anarchic farce required lightning costume changes and saw actors playing multiple characters in the same scene. Notably, Sir Watkin Bassett speaking with Stephanie (Stiffy) Byng required Jeeves to conduct a scene with himself.

The set is remarkable, constructed by the multi-talented Gentleman’s Gentleman as the play progresses; it offers an endless supply of visual gags. The highlight for many during the show was a small yellow rubber duck (which isn’t meant as a judgement on the rest of the play, it simply means the duck was bloody brilliant).

The structure of the play stuck firmly with the well-established pattern of a Jeeves story. As the plot progresses Bertie falls further and further into an impossible situation, caught between newt-loving friends, a dreaded aunt, multiple potential fiancés and a proto-fascist dictator with an eye for ladies fashion. The madness and mayhem build as the problems mount up, and only one man can help, Jeeves.

The show was charmingly stupid and stupidly charming and we left the theatre with smiles on our faces.