Jeeves & Wooster, Series One
adapted by Clive Exton, dir. Robert Young (ITV, 1990)
A frivolous bit of fun, and well-cast (in the over-the-top support roles as well as Fry & Laurie, who are about as Jeeves-ish & Wooster-like as one could imagine). Ultimately, however, there’s only so much that can be done without Wodehouse’s prose.
Very Good, Jeeves
by P.G. Wodehouse (Doubleday, Doran, 1930)
audiobook read by Jonathan Cecil (Blackstone, 2011)
Wodehouse give the impression he could dash off a Jeeves & Wooster story between breakfast and elevenses, and would happily do so should ever he feel himself wanting for joie de vivre. Jonathan Cecil gives perfect voice to the frivolous restorative fizz.
Jeeves and the Leap of Faith
by Ben Schott (Little, Brown and Company, 2020); audiobook read by Daniel Ings (Hachette, 2020)
An earnest but ultimately pallid homage. The characters are in keeping, the plot suitably entangled. But while conscientious, Schott’s pastiche lacks the trenchant delivery with which Wodehouse chivvied his characters towards the denouement (here lacking). Ings’s audiobook reading is rather too restrained.
Jeeves and the King of Clubs
by Ben Schott (Hutchinson, 2018); audiobook read by James Lance (Bolinda, 2018)
Schott faithfully dovetails his plot threads and recaptures much of Wodehouse’s loquacity, albeit without quite the same vim of expression or uproarious knack for aperçus. The world is right but the reading seems off. It really needed Hugh Laurie and/or Stephen Fry.
Jeeves in the Offing
by P. G. Wodehouse (Herbert Jenkins, 1960); audiobook read by Ian Carmichael (Chivers, 1990)
‘In the Offing’ is an apt title, for the valet Jeeves remains all but absent from this novel, leaving Bertie Wooster to thrive on his own initiative and witterings, thwarted less by inherent haplessness than by the tangled Gordian knot of circumstance.
The Inimitable Jeeves
by P. G. Wodehouse (Herbert Jenkins, 1923); audiobook read by Jonathan Cecil (BBC, 1990/2009)
This fix-up novel brings together eleven Jeeves & Wooster short stories, the linking thread of which is Bertie’s friend Bingo Little, whose compulsive falling in love brings endless trouble to his old school chum. Jonathan Cecil’s reading lends zest to the mishaps.
Carry On, Jeeves
by P. G. Wodehouse (Herbert Jenkins, 1925); audiobook read by Jonathan Cecil (1991)
This collection of short stories forms the perfect introduction to one of literature’s great characters: the valet Jeeves, who carries himself with a reserved brand of Holmesian all-knowingness, manipulates social situations and takes on a near omnipotence in saving Bertie Wooster’s bacon.