I didn’t catch all the Andrew Lloyd-Webber shows when they were streaming – there were some weeks where I was only able to catch one of the streaming theatre shows, and given their more limited availability, the National Theatre Live production was always the one I prioritized – but I’d say By Jeeves is probably my favorite of the ones I’ve seen, which I wasn’t necessarily expecting. While I’m familiar with the subject matter in a roundabout way, via Jeeves and Wooster, this was a new show for me, and I found it pretty charming.
Bertie Wooster’s one-man banjo concert appears on the brink of disaster when his banjo goes missing. Luckily, his ever-reliable valet Jeeves is waiting in the wings with an alternative suggestion: that, while they wait for a replacement banjo to arrive, Bertie instead regales the crowd with a dramatized anecdote from his life. With the aid of some villagers to play Bertie’s friends and convenient costumes and sets Jeeves has just happened to rustle up, Jeeves guides Bertie through a comic recount of a misadventure involving lots of assumed names, narrow escapes with matrimony, and convoluted capers.
I’ve still never read the P.G. Wodehouse stories they’re based on, but I do have a fondness for the delightful old Jeeves and Wooster series starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, and the characters here are pretty instantly recognizable. There’s the enterprising but hapless Bertie, of course, and the benignly-Machiavellian Jeeves, but such characters as Gussie Fink-Nottel, Honoria Glossop, and Madeline Bassett similarly spring forth onto the stage, easy to see the commonalities with their television counterparts. While I’m not sure if the plot(s) here are based on a specific Wodehouse story, I know I’ve seen various elements of them before on Jeeves and Wooster, and regardless of the details, the underlying theme is the same: Bertie dreams up a scheme to help out himself and/or his friends, and Jeeves saves the young master from himself by quietly nudging events awry, right up to the point where everything resolves as it should. The show offers up plenty of frothy farce, light wordplay, and comic personalities.
Given that many of Lloyd-Webber’s shows focus on such high drama (Jesus Christ Superstar, Phantom, Evita, etc.), By Jeeves feels at first like an odd choice for him, but it’s a good reminder just how varied his work is (Starlight Express, anyone?) The score matches the tone and feel of the show appropriately, with an emphasis on patter songs full of both rhymes and jokes. The occasional slower numbers feature sweet, tuneful melodies and are often paired with funny onstage business to keep the proceedings from getting too serious. I particularly like “Travel Hopefully” (Bertie’s driving song,) “That was Nearly Us” (Honoria trying to get Bertie back in her well-muscled clutches,) and “What Have You Got to Say, Jeeves” (Bertie’s inevitable confrontation with Jeeves as things all go pear-shaped.)
The cast all do a nice job with the material. Plenty of them are likely borrowing elements from the TV show’s rendition of their characters – like I said, it’s so instantly easy to see who’s who – but that just adds to the fun. John Schrerer as Bertie is the one who’s probably the most different here, as he doesn’t play the fool quite as devotedly as Hugh Laurie did. That said, it remains a charming, funny performance, and he pairs well with Martin Jarvis’s unflappable Jeeves. As a special treat, the show also features a young Donna Lynne Champlin (more recently Paula from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend!) as Honoria Glossop, showing off her vocal skills and comedy chops with equal aplomb.
Warnings
A bit of comic violence, drinking, and plenty of “don’t try this at home.”
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