Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense

Perfect Nonsense is another of those productions in the ilk of The 39 Steps where a few actors play multiple parts wearing dodgy wigs, outlandish clothes, display a variety of accents and cross-dress madly. After playing a year in the West End, winning the Best New Comedy Award at the 2014 Olivier’s, doing three UK tours and a stint in Mumbai, it’s currently touring New Zealand.

I personally thought The 39 Steps was tedious, dull and extremely unfunny, so I was surprised when I raised a chuckle at Perfect Nonsense, and not once but several times. Maybe it was my lifelong love of the works of P.G. “Plum” Wodehouse and his group of eccentric characters.

Loosely based on The Code of the Woosters, the action, set in the twenties, concerned the theft by Bertie Wooster, aided by Jeeves, of a silver cream jug from Totleigh Towers and various escapades of a farcial nature involving the short-sighted Gussie Fink-Nottle, his fiancé Madeline Bassett, her father Sir Watkins Bassett, Wooster’s Aunt Dahlia, and the Nazi-saluting fascist Roderick Spode. The conceit of the piece was that Bertie (Matthew Carter) has been persuaded to hire a theatre to do a one-man show but finds he can’t do it on his own so enlists the aide of Jeeves (Joseph Chance) and another butler Seppings, who in this production was played by one of the co-authors Robert Goodale.

All three actors, who we’ve seen variously in Midsommer Murders, The Bill and Heartbeat, played out the farce with polished and finely tuned performances. Carter, who remained throughout as Bertie, had a set of prominent teeth and a goofy smile which was perfect for the role as he stumbled from one calamity to another. Goodale, amongst many doubles, was funny as a butch Aunt Dahlia and very funny as the eight-foot tall Roderick Spode. Chance was a brilliant Jeeves, but had the play’s funniest sequence when dressed on his left as Sir Watkins Bassett with moustache and pipe, and his right as Madeline Bassett in lipstick and cloche hat, he carried on a conversation as them both switching in profile from one to the other.

Wodehouse is not easy to adapt dramatically but this show did a good job of capturing the essence of his characters with warm affection. An inventive set and a soundtrack that sounded like it belonged in The Boy Friend, helped enormously.

Peter Pinne     

Image: Matthew Carter and Joseph Chance