Jeeves Takes Charge at Ustinov Studio, Bath – review

The festive season revels in familiarity, the warm hug of tradition. As theatres around the country offer pantomime, ghost stories, or new interpretations of classic fairy tales, the Ustinov Studio has decided to provide a different kind of comfort this Christmas. Jeeves Takes Charge, a stage adaptation of three of PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves stories, brought to life by the terrifically versatile Sam Harrison, is as reassuringly cosy as tinsel and turkey. It’s a perfectly pleasing two hours of light wit and astonishing word craft and, like plenty of Christmas entertainment, will have vanished from mind by the time the new year rolls around.

This revival of a 1980 success, which led to actor Edward Duke receiving an Olivier Award and touring the world for seven years (he passed away aged 40 in 1994) now plays in a different world, where the antics of Bertie Wooster, who is both saved and manipulated by his valet Jeeves, is fantastical, a world where money and work don’t interrelate, where engagements are made and broken in an afternoon and where ‘Aunts’ are the biggest horror known to mankind. The golden glow of nostalgia continues to move apace, and this world is as removed from today as Camelot.

What it has going for it in spades is the cadence of Wodehouse’s glowing prose. There is something so delightfully linguistic about the whole thing, and this play, an adaptation of three Jeeves stories (including the titular one and Bertie Changes His Mind) gives space to enjoy a masterful writer who revels in his use of vernacular to convey a whole world.

Harrison, who is as physically dexterous as much as he is vocally agile, lands sentences with suitable relish, each of the 23 roles given a unique selling point, from the haughty fiancée, the drunkard friend, the spindly old headmaster to the spiteful boy scout. It’s a performance that reminds you how many memorable characters Wodehouse crafted. Harrison conjures them within a few lines, bringing a fully realised character in little more than a glottal stop or a hunched-over back and a raised eyebrow. From a technical perspective, Harrison is presenting one of the performances of the year.

Yet over two hours, its format begins to pale. Playing the stories back-to-back means we become used to the peaks and troughs, Bertie begins on his sofa in Mayfair ready to tell his tale, and the comic peaks as the setup reaches its apotheosis and a final reveal that Jeeves has gently won the day. Individually each story is satisfying, but as a night of theatre, its routine begins to work against it.

Original director Hugh Wooldridge returns to a work that means a great deal to him and gives the work a carefully considered production, given a sheen of class through Caite Hevner’s projections, delineating several settings through well-realised paintings of among others stern bearded headmasters and vases of colourful flowers. The whole evening offers old-fashioned delights, but it will be chiefly remembered for the pyrotechnics of its leading man.