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BERTIE WOOSTER dictated the following to JOHN TURNBULL, director of our March production
Most people, even my more intellectually-challenged fellow-members of the Drones Club, will know something of the exploits of that paragon among men, Reginald Jeeves. Indeed many will have read the tales of his triumphs as recorded by his young master, me, Bertram Wooster, Esq. But the history about to be related at the Geoffrey Whitworth Theatre in the County of Kent is unique in several ways.
First, it is the only record of the great man’s feats in which Yours Truly does not appear. The reason for my absence, from what we might quite literally call the scene, during these events will be made clear during the course of the performance; but suffice it to say that it is an episode not to be recalled without a shudder. For reasons too painful to relate here, we find Jeeves in the service of William Egerton Bamflyde Ossingham Belfry, ninth Earl of Towcester, of whom it can at least be said that his easy charm, good looks and intellect perfectly match the attributes of Jeeves’ regular employer.
In secundo parte, as Jeeves is wont to say, it is the only chronicle of his activities to be first set down not as a history, but as a drama. It is sometimes forgotten that Mr Wodehouse, though famed as a novelist of the lighter sort, was also a consummate man of the theatre. He wrote eighteen plays, thirty-three musical comedies and the lyrics for many more. He collaborated with such composers as Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Ivor Novello and Cole Porter, not to mention his collaborator for more than forty years, the long-suffering Guy Bolton. Indeed, along with Bolton and Kern, he is credited as one of the founders of the modern American musical comedy. At one point he had five shows running simultaneously (as Jeeves would put it) on Broadway. He was also a drama critic, but perhaps the less said about that particular sub-species of humanity, the better.
Most who have been fortunate enough to come across Jeeves on stage and screen have, of course, been watching dramatisations of novels. In the case of Come On, Jeeves it was the other way, as it were, around. It was the play that was adapted into a novel, which the discerning reader will know as Ring for Jeeves (1953). And that date, as our detective novelists are inclined to remark, contains a clue. For though Jeeves first came to the public’s attention (in a disgracefully minor role) as early as 1917, his exploits are usually associated with that golden period between the World Wars when a young gentleman-about-town of independent means could don a carefree pair of spats without fear of social revolution.
But tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis, as I have often heard Jeeves remark; and socialistic legislation since the Second World War has changed the landscape in ways hitherto undreamed of in any of our philosophies. In other words, life is real and life is earnest, as I believe the Bard or some other Johnny might have said. But the English gentleman will always adapt, and William, Earl of Towcester is no exception. It is with this reassuring thought that I leave you in his company, and that, of course, of Jeeves.
They will, I feel sure, endeavour to give satisfaction. Toodle-pip!
BERTRAM
BURKE’S PEERAGE AND GENTRY
according to Wodehouse
As explained, Come On Jeeves!, apart from the eponymous Jeeves, has a new cast of characters, not even including Bertie Wooster.
Nor does it include Bertie’s old prep school chum, Gussie Fink-Nottle, newt fancier, a teetotal bachelor with a face like a fish. Nor the Honourable Freddie Threepwood, who was expelled from Eton and sent down from Oxford and is now safest kept at home, at Blandings Castle, in the care of his addled papa, Lords Emsworth. Of course, his lordship is fully occupied with the care of the Empress of Blandings, who is not his wife, but his prize sow.
Wodehouse’s collection of upper class half-wits is unique in the literary canon. Many of them crop up again and again in the Wooster and Jeeves books. Apart from Gussie and Freddie and Lord Emsworth, there is the Honourable Galahad Threepwood, another scion of the Emsworth dynasty, a man about town, in such a hectic social whirl that he never went to bed until he was 50. Another member of the nobility and habitué of the Drones Club, with whom Bertie was at Oxford, is Marmaduke “Chuffy” Chuffnell, 5th baron of the line.
With the notable exception of Jeeves, the men are uniformly dim. There are those who have more money than sense and those who are always short of the readies, but could not countenance having to get a job. In the latter category we have Stanley Featherstonehaugh-Ukridge (for those in the know, the pronunciation is Fanshaw-Ewkridge), ever seeking money without having to work for it.
Other Wodehouse creations are Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps, Claude Cattermole “Catsmeat” Pirbright and Pongo Twistleton. A rank outsider, who is decidedly not “one of us”, is Percy Frobisher-Pilbeam, a shiny little private detective, a distasteful sneak.
In comparison to the men, the women are intellectual giants. The young ones are all pretty and hard to get, or pretty and easy game. And among the older generation there are Bertie’s formidable aunts. Aunt Agatha considers Bertie to be a burden on society and is always pressing him to make himself useful by finding a wife and producing an heir. Aunt Dahlia, mother of Bonzo Travers, has such a voice that she has no need of a telephone. Despite her constant admonishments, Bertie seeks invitations to her home because she has a superb chef, Anatole, master of French cuisine.
Such is our ruling class. One of the few characters who works for a living is Jeeves (first name, Reginald). He is not a butler, but a valet, although as Bertie says: “He can buttle with the best of them.” He was appointed after his predecessor was dismissed for pinching his employer’s silk socks. Such is Jeeves’ intellectual prowess and renown that he has an internet search engine named after him (Ask Jeeves) and is the subject of a biography written by Cyril Northcote Parkinson, Jeeves: A Gentleman’s Personal Gentleman.
Wodehouse on his collaboration with Guy Bolton:
What usually happens is that Guy comes to me and says he has a corking idea for a show. I say “Ah yes?” and we sit down and work out a plot. This done, Guy starts writing and goes on writing until the thing is finished. But do not think that I am idle while he is doing this. Twice or thrice a day –sometimes oftener – I look in and say “How’s it getting on?” and he says “All right” and I say “Good. Good.” And so, little by little and bit by bit, the work gets done.
...What is so remarkable is that after forty years of churning out theatre-joy for a discriminating public we are not merely speaking to one another but are the closest of friends. If Guy saw me drowning, he would dive in to the rescue without a moment’s hesitation, and if I saw Guy drowning I would be the first to call for assistance. How different from most collaborators, who in similar circumstances would merely throw their partner an anvil.
For practically all theatrical collaborations blow up with a loud report the morning after the first failure, Dramatist A blaming Dramatist B for being the sole cause of it and Dramatist B coming right back at him....indeed whenever the body of a playwright is found with its head bashed in by a blunt instrument, the first thing the Big Four at Scotland Yard do, I believe, is to inquire into the movements of his former collaborators. “Didn’t the deceased write a stinker with George Robinson a couple of years ago which came off after the second night?” asks the Assistant Commissioner. “I thought so. Detain Robinson for questioning. If he hasn’t a cast-iron alibi, he’s for it.”
An upper class gentleman’s personal gentleman
BILL BRAY introduces the inventor of Jeeves
Bertie Wooster, upper class English twit, and his indispensable valet, Jeeves, were invented by P G Wodehouse, who is regarded by some as the most important humorous writer in English of the 20th Century.
Wooster does not appear in our March play, but the uniquely gifted Jeeves, on loan to one of Bertie’s friends, is the major presence.
Wodehouse was born in Guildford and was educated at Dulwich College but did not follow an elder brother to Oxford due to an unfortunate financial crisis in his family. Instead, he left Dulwich to join a bank. Not for long, however, because within two years he had started to write the first of his one hundred or so comic novels using a number of central characters including Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle; Mr Mulliner, pub raconteur; P Smith, monocled dandy and practical socialist, and Jeeves and Wooster. His writings included not only novels but also short stories, magazine and newspaper articles, screenplays and books for stage musical comedies. He also wrote lyrics for musicals including Bill (“I love him because he’s wonderful/Because he’s just my Bill.”) from the Jerome Kern classic Show Boat (1927), although it had been written ten years earlier but cut from the Kern 1918 show Oh Lady! Lady!
He spent ten years in the USA, moving to France in 1934, where he and his wife settled in Le Touquet. At approaching 60, he was arrested by the advancing German army in 1940. He was allowed, by his German captors, a few moments to assemble his belongings. He packed tobacco, pencils, three scribbling pads, four pipes, a pair of shoes, a razor, some soap, shirts, socks, underwear, half a pound of tea and the poems of Tennyson. Should he pack the typescript of the novel Joy in the Morning, on which he was then engaged? In the event, he packed his constant companion, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. His writings have many Shakespeare quotations, always used comically, of course. The major joke in the Jeeves stories is that the master, Bertie, is the silly ass while servant Jeeves is intelligent and knowing, full of "wise saws and modern instances", as A N Wilson has pointed out.
Joy in the Morning has a comment from Jeeves: "The stars, sir."
Wooster: "Stars?"
Jeeves: "Yes, sir."
Wooster: "What about them?"
Jeeves: "I was merely directing your attention to them, sir. Look how the floor of heaven is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold...." and so on. Later on in the story, the words of Lorenzo from Act V of The Merchant of Venice have become Bertie's own, and he can write sentences such as: "In spite of the floor of heaven being thick inlaid with patines of bright gold, it was, as I have said, a darkish night."
The stories depend upon the ancient device (going right back to the Latin comedies of Terence and Plautus, and reinforced in Beaumarchais'sFigaro) of the servant being much cleverer than his master.
Wodehouse and his wife were interned as enemy aliens, but the Nazis realised that they would have a great propaganda coup if they could persuade him to broadcast to Britain. Rather naively he agreed and he gave some talks which were innocent and comic but this was held against him as treasonable behaviour. British honours did not materialise until the very end of his life when he was given an honorary knighthood just before his death at the age of 93. He had taken US citizenship in 1972. He also received an honorary doctorate from Oxford.
He collaborated with Guy Bolton on plays and musicals. Between 1917 and 1928 he was a prolific lyricist for several composers of musical shows. The hit film, Arthur with Dudley Moore and John Gielgud was based on Jeeves and Wooster although not officially credited. There have been two TV series, one in the 60s with Ian Carmichael (who, sadly, recently died) and Dennis Price and the second in the 1990s in which the characters were played by Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry.
It is a classic comic formula and we now welcome ― for the very first time ― Jeeves and an array of upper class twits to the GWT.
Please Note: There will be smoking in this production
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