In 1989, Hugh and Stephen were approached about playing Bertie
Wooster
and Jeeves in the first television adaptation of Wodehouse for over
twenty years. Although initially reluctant, they were won over by the
quality of the scripts, and filming started later that year. The first
series of five episodes was shown in spring 1990,
to general critical acclaim. Considering what a minefield they entered
in portraying
two of the best-loved fictional characters of the century, the
following reviews show it to have been a personal triumph for both
Stephen and Hugh:
"...the umpteenth incarnation of Wodehouse's
characters, and
potentially
the most interesting....Clive Exton...does seem to have kept a period
feel
without consigning them entirely to a long-gone age, and that suits the
work of Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, who manage to keep the humour
modern
enough to laugh at....this is the job Fry and Laurie's partnership
might
have been born for." - Patrick Stoddart, Sunday Times
"...a considerable success...Now we have a bit more
of Fry and
Laurie, the only Jeeves-Wooster team who could plausibly play each
other's
roles and who are also the right ages...(The adapter Clive Exton) is
wonderfully
served by Hugh Laurie as Bertram Wilberforce Wooster, gargling his
inadequacies
into a stiff collar, and by Stephen Fry as the most sinister and
supercilious
valet since Dirk Bogarde first gave us The Servant." - Sheridan Morley,
Times
"...the new Jeeves and Wooster series
demands nothing
less than
complete reevaluation of Wodehouse's art. Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry's
performances in Clive Exton's adaptations are as radical a cleaning as
any classic has had on television, and the results are as striking as
anything
the National Gallery has done to Bronzino....it is the brilliantly
applied
realism of ITV's new series which restores Wodehouse to the realm of
pure
comedy. The whole dramatis personae...breaks out of the mold of lazy
caricature....it
is the director and his actors who must be given the major share of the
credit, especially Hugh Laurie as Wooster. From the moment we first see
him nursing a hangover in the dock after a Boat Race jape of stealing a
policeman's helmet, we are conducted along a switchback of facial
expressions
that lifts the personality of Wooster onto a different plane from any
representation
of him filmed before. His amiability, the pique followed by resentment
with which he reacts to Jeeves's admonitions and manoeuvres...must be
credited
as ...true accreditations of Bertie as a comic divinity....Stephen Fry
allows Jeeves no such innocence...Fry never overdoes the pomposity and
circumlocution of Jeeves's speech, but neither does he for a moment
dent
his priestly solemnity." - Peter Porter, Times Literary
Supplement
This series aired in the U.S. on Masterpiece Theatre in
November-December
1990. Sharp-eyed fans will note from the last quote that the opening
scene
of "Jeeves's Arrival" was edited out, for reasons best known to PBS.
Some additional quotes from TV program listings for the first
series:
"roles (Fry and Laurie) were born to play"; "brought delightfully
to life by (Fry and Laurie)"; "marvellous performances";
"Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie are in superlative form"; "brilliant
interpretations"; "a splendidly inept Wooster"; "Stephen
Fry and Hugh Laurie excel". (All quotes taken from the London
Times
and London Sunday Times.)
The second series, this time of six episodes, aired in spring
1991.
Lynne Truss of the Times wrote of it: "Jeeves and Wooster
returned
for a new series last night....Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie are now
immovably
identified with the roles....Laurie is such a good interpreter of
Wodehouse
that he doesn't seem to be interpreting at all. If he were ever down on
his luck, he could tour the country, giving readings." The Times
and Sunday Times TV listings said: "Stephen Fry and Hugh
Laurie return
in another six-part series....Strange that these tales...are still so
popular,
but that probably says more about the current vogue for Fry and Laurie
than any abiding obsession with Wodehouse"; "Another of the sparkling
P.G. Wodehouse tales definitively brought to life by Hugh Laurie and
Stephen
Fry"; "The inspired casting that has Stephen Fry playing urbane
butler to Hugh Laurie's foppish oaf could do with one little
adjustment:
how about reversing their roles for the next series? It could be a
spiffing
wheeze. Meanwhile, here is another inconsequential saga of seesawing
betrothals
and bossy maiden aunts lifted quite out of the ordinary by the superb
Laurie-Fry
double act"; "Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry in perfect partnership".
A third series was shown in spring 1992, garnering the
following
comments:
Times: "Slipping effortlessly into
roles that
could
have been created for them, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie launch a third
series of Jeeves and Wooster...the comic genius of [Wodehouse] lay in
making
the idle rich silly and therefore hard to dislike. This is admirably
conveyed
by Laurie with his popping eyes and sagging mouth, while Fry's Jeeves
cleverly
suggests the servant who is really the master."
Sunday Times: "The return of
the excellent Fry and Laurie version of the Wodehouse
stories....Stephen
Fry's patient and knowing Jeeves is matched by Laurie's mastery of the
mien of a total prat."
Marcus Berkmann, Daily Mail: "With
Stephen Fry and Hugh
Laurie now comfortably installed in their
roles, this unobtrusively
excellent Granada series now purrs like a well-oiled machine, Clive
Exton's scripts extracting the
essence of P. G. Wodehouse's appeal without either getting bogged down
in the language or
reducing the plots to sitcom formula. It's a deserved success....As for
Laurie, he remains without peer as a silly ass of the first
water. Voice, clothes, bearing, face
like a dead fish - he couldn't possibly be better."
Richard Last, Daily Telegraph: " From now on, I'll
concentrate on the virtues of
Granada's resumed series which, like Jeeves, continues as far as most
other viewers are concerned
to give complete satisfaction. First among them has to be Hugh Laurie's
facial interpretation of
Bertie, now brought to a fine pitch of eye-popping, open-mouthed
imbecility."
Joseph Connolly, a Wodehouse biographer, wrote
an article about Wodehouse on screen for the Times when
this series was
winding up. He said: "...so comfortably ensconced have Stephen Fry
and Hugh Laurie become in the title roles that a fourth series seems a
strong likelihood. To a whole generation, Fry and Laurie are
Jeeves and
Wooster....The current series...seems destined to be the most
fondly-remembered
[Wodehouse screen adaptation] of all....I believe that Wodehouse would
have thoroughly approved of the entire caper, from soup to nuts."
The fourth and final series of J and W aired in
May-June
1993.
Times
TV listing: "This is the fourth and sadly final series of Granada
Television's polished Wodehouse adaptations, and it shows every sign of
going out on a high note. The Stephen Fry- Hugh Laurie partnership is,
of course, the cornerstone and as with David Suchet's Poirot, it is
hard
to think that the roles have been better cast. You could say that
Laurie's
twittering Bertie and Fry's deadpan Jeeves is one of the best
television
double acts since Morecambe and Wise":; "entertaining comedy
series"; "Stephen Fry and Hugh excel as P.G. Wodehouse's classic
comic characters"; "polished".
Peter Paterson, Daily Mail: " Having
originally been
downright hostile to the idea of Stephen Fry as
Jeeves and Hugh Laurie as
Bertie Wooster, by the time their fourth series of Jeeves And Wooster
returned last night, I couldn't
remember, or even imagine, anyone else playing these parts. It wasn't
an overnight conversion, and I still have reservations about
the way that the stories have
been adapted and the presentation, but so far as the two principals are
concerned, I'm completely
sold. Fry is Jeeves and Laurie is Wooster."
U.S. air dates for the last three series were: Series 3,
Dec.1992-Jan.1993;
Series 4, Oct. 1993, and Series 2, Jan.-Feb.1995. Five episodes from
these
three series weren't shown by PBS, but all are now available on home
video and DVD.
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