Written for The Public Reviews
Although well-loved by many, the Jeeves and Wooster novels are an acquired taste; you really have to go in for their particular brand of silliness to enjoy them fully. I thought it would take a fan of the novels to appreciate this stage version by Alan Auckbourn and Andrew Lloyd Webber, but my plus-one, who has never read a Wodehouse book and has only glanced at the televised Fry and Laurie take on the buffoonish Wooster and his inimitable gentleman’s gentleman, was entertained and completely won-over by this production.
The play follows the story of one of the Jeeves novels, or may take elements from a number of them – it is hard to tell when they are all so similar. It inevitably involves mistaken identities, twisted love triangles and layer upon layer of confusion and farcical nonsense which presents an impossible mess. The confusion can only be straightened out by the logical Jeeves who always seems to step in a few moments later than he could have; Paul Meston gives us a Jeeves who enjoys his role as arbiter and the power this gives him to make Wooster suffer, just a bit, for his rather perfunctory treatment of him.
It may stick closely to the content of the books but the play is significantly different from them in that it uses the clever device of narrating a story within the frame of an entertainment at the parish hall, which re-enacts the events of Wooster’s visit to the house of Sir Watkyn Bassett. This allows the characters to be self-aware; they refer to props, dramatic convention and the arrival of the deus ex machina which will conveniently arrive to help Wooster out of a tricky plot cul-de-sac. By being self-referential in this way, Wodehouse’s plots and characters are presented as being knowingly contrived. The novels, in comparison, are somewhat naïve in that they invite the reader into the farcical world of the story but never shift the focus out again – we appreciate Wodehouse’s story craft but the characters must be a bit simple never to see past the ludicrous disguises and the extraordinarily unbelievable turn of events. By Jeeves celebrates Wodehouse’s comic genius and the brilliance of his ridiculous plots; the dramatic form allows the characters to become shrewd but retain their silliness, so that we see that their naivety is just a performance and we can credit them, and the audience, with some intelligence.
The cast performed with verve and energy and a special mention must go to the choreographer, Andrew Wright, who had to work with the challenges of such a small space but managed to accompany the songs with great comic movement. The stage really was too small and, although conducive to the setting of the parish hall, the actors would have benefitted from having more room to maneuver: there was an unfortunate incident where a dance routine resulted in someone in the front row receiving a cracking blow to the shin – luckily it came at the moment of Stiff and Stinker’s clumsy love dance and so was totally in context. There were a few bloopers and fudged lines but these added to the cobbled together charm of this village entertainment. Rather than a straight dramatisation of the novels, this is a new approach which brings something extra to the original books and characters as well as being great fun.
Runs until 5th March
Picture Source
No comments:
Post a Comment