England in the 1920's:To control the irresponsible conduct of spoilt rich
kid Bertie Wooster (Hugh Laurie), he is issued with a valet, Jeeves (Stephen
Fry). & it's about high time too, since Wooster suddenly finds himself in
the position of having to marry Honoria Glossam (Elizabeth Kettle), daughter of
a rich family, who he has not the least interest in ... The plan he comes up
with to avoid the whole thing though - involving him pushing Honoria's brother
Oswald (Alistair Haley) into a river & his friend Bingo (Michael Siberry),
who loves honoria in secret, saving the boy - completely backfires when Bingo
fails to show up & Bertie ends up having to try to save the brat himself
... which for Honoria only proves his love. Jeeves' alternative plan on the
other hand, exploiting Honoria's parents' (Jane Downs, Roger Brierley) fear of
cats& involving some of Bertie's irresponsible pals & a family dinner
on the other hand proves to do the trick ... & Bertie comes out of it a
free man. The direction of Jeeves and Wooster proves
to be rather stagey & a little dusted for its time - being very much
reminiscent of 1970's period tv-drama, the choice of its leads however does
work rather well, them being a popular comedy team & having had their own
tv-show A Bit of Fry & Laurie since 1987, plus both of them were regulars
on Black Adder goes Forth
as well as having appeared (together & alone) on
previous Black Adder-series (Stephen Fry was also a regular on Black
Adder II, while Hugh Laurie was a regular on Black Adder the Third)
and series like The Young Ones
... & Jeeves and Wooster profits rather greatly from their
likeable chemistry.
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