What Ho! Time for an awfully big adventure as good old Bertie Wooster tries to get out of a frightful society jam with his stalwart manservant Jeeves.
It’s been a long time since Jeeves & Wooster graced the telly, with the then youthful Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. So much so that I’d almost forgotten what fun a jolly good PG Wodehouse farce could be, dripping in period English wit.
This particular episode, featuring the affable upper class twit and his unflappable manservant, is told under the premise of Bertie (played by Robert Webb of Peep Show fame) having the notion to hire a whole theatre to have a stab at this acting lark and recount a mad cap weekend involving his batty Aunt Dahlia, the theft of an antique silver cow creamer and some emergency matchmaking at the stately home of his newt obsessed chum Gussie Fink-Nottle.
Joining him on the boards to revisit Wooster’s wheeze are his poker faced gentleman’s gentleman Jeeves (Jason Thorpe) and pint sized manservant Seppings (Christopher Ryan from the Young Ones) who between them cover all the other parts male and female, scenery changes, props and sound effects, in a ludicrous whirl of absurd costume changes and well timed slapstick.
It takes a little while to get into the show-within-a-show premise but we’re soon sucked into the dippily upbeat glow of Robert Webb as toff Bertie, orbited at obligingly frenetic speed by his manservant duo.
Jeeves and Seppings often find themselves covering two parts at once they flit through colourful Wodehouse characters, such as bumbling Constable Oates, blustering judge Sir Watkin Bassett and Bertie's loopy Aunt Dhalia. Quite the wheeze when it’s Jeeves amorously advancing on Bertie wearing a fetching lampshade as dippy society blonde or tiny Seppings teetering on balanced furniture as he struggles to play a towering brute threatening to smash Bertie into jelly.
Of equal importance to the wonderful Wodehousian language and the trio tearing about the place was the inventive use of the 'manservant assembled' set and revolving stage, powered by bicycle no less. Which changed up through the scenes with just as much well timed comic aplomb as the cross dressing drama.
Wonderful bonkers nonsense indeed, not quite on a slapstick par with similar small scale farces the 39 steps or Dick Barton Special Agent, in part due to the gentle Wodehouse humour, but excellent performances and dashed good fun.
Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense plays at Nottingham's Theatre Royal from Monday 20 to Saturday 25 April 2015.
Theatre Royal Nottingham website
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