Trailer from "Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense"

[haikitteh]

Found a trailer from the new Jeeves & Wooster play. Has anyone seen it yet? Thoughts?

Click to view

Between the Faulks book and this play, it's certainly turning out to be the Fall of Jeeves. Take that how you will.

Comments

[cherrypep]

On one hand it's just down the road from what currently I call my office so I'm going to have to see it. On the other tickets are currently pretty expensive for what on the evidence of that trailer looks less like successfully done theatrical Wodehouse than either Top Hat, which had Wodehousian elements but is now closed in London, or a performance I once saw by the Barnes Charity Players starring a mate from school.

I guess I'll see it if I can get a cheap enough ticket or if I run out of anything to do and have time to kill... anyone else seen it yet?

[cherrypep]

Ah, the penny drops. According to this interview thingummy it's a three-man adaptation, one of those very self-referential things. They say, "if we wanted to keep Bertie as the raconteur we should write a play in which, encouraged by his drinking pals, he would take over a West End theatre and attempt to tell one of his stories in the form of a one-man show. As his loyal valet, Jeeves would naturally accompany Bertie to the theatre and, in the certain knowledge that the show was destined to go horribly wrong, he would have made certain contingency plans." Then they added a third character later (Seppings). The Telegraph calls it a short-staffed play within a play. As an occasional theatre-goer that's the sort of thing that makes me wonder how they get away with charging up to £85 a ticket; you can't claim to be spending it on the cast, eh what?

A review from the Sussex Express says it's "an absolute riot from start to finish", while the Richmond magazine say "a night of near farce ensues in which the idea of a play within a play

[haikitteh]

Everything I've read is generally positive, though I'll admit that this trailer left me cold. I'm wary of the characterizations that I've seen peeks of, both in this trailer and in reviews. I don't see Bertie as a giddy idiot, nor Jeeves as a long-suffering minion who is pressed to go along with his master's every whim. In fact, the main thrust of all of the books is that Jeeves comes up with crazy plans that Bertie is pressed into executing. But I get that they need to find a way to dramatize the stories.

I admit also that I'm kinda shocked that they're charging so much for such a stripped-down show, but I'm even more shocked that you haven't gone yet when it's so close to your work. Living across the globe from it, I can't even dream of going, and can only hope it goes on the road and comes closer to my town.

[cherrypep]

Yeah, I'd maybe have gone a little earlier if I'd a) realised it was on yet or b) found well-priced tickets. Sadly, though, there is no truth in the rumour that working on Drury Lane entitles you to a West End Weighting. Mostly it just means that your commute, accommodation, lunch etc. are all really, really expensive. So I have to ration myself on the musical attendance front because if I didn't, going to work would become completely uneconomical :-)

[caligularib]

I agree that there's nothing minion-esque nor long suffering about Jeeves. But boy is Matthew Macfayden freakin' adorable.