Jeeves and Wooster

starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie
screenplay by Clive Exton

This year, Jeeves and Wooster turned 30. I remember seeing couple of the episodes on Russian TV in 1990s. I didn’t get most of the humour back then though. I bought the 21^st anniversary edition box when we lived in Finland. In the beginning, the kids were enthusiastic but somehow we never got to the end. Now we did.

Laurie’s Wooster, albeit lovable, seems to be no more than a 20^th-century incarnation of that “mad, blundering, incredibly handsome nincompoop”, the Prince Regent, and does not evolve much. On the other hand, Jeeves’s cunning plans and schemes become even more cunning and sophisticated as the series grows progressively sillier. Also, he greatly improves as a musician.

Anyway. We all know that Fry and Laurie are great. But J & W wouldn’t be what it is without the script by Clive Exton — the Poirot Clive Exton, — without the music by that Anne Dudley, and without its supporting cast. John Turner is outstanding as Roderick Spode, 7^th Earl of Sidcup, a hilariously Mussoliniesque leader of the Black Shorts. Mary Wimbush makes a truly awesome Aunt Agatha (series 1 through 3), while Elizabeth Morton (series 3 and 4) is the best Madeline (of all three).

You know, the more I see of women, the more I think that there ought to be a law. Something has got to be done about this sex, or the whole fabric of Society will collapse, and then, what silly asses we shall all look.

This is the opinion of Bertie Wooster, of course; there’s no reason to think that P. G. Wodehouse shared it any more than other Wooster’s opinions. As one Honoria Plum (I don’t believe it’s her real name) noted in her blog, the charge against Wodehouse that “women are excluded as complex characters” is

partially correct, but misleading because Wodehouse was simply not in the business of creating complex characters at all.

Just look at the men, other than Jeeves I mean, in the series. And the children. Don’t get me started on children.

As we finished re-watching all of it a week or so ago, we need to find another reasonably well-forgotten comedy series.