BWW Reviews: JEEVES AND WOOSTER IN PERFECT NONSENSE, The Duke of York's Theatre, November 12 2013

Matthew Macfadyen and Stephen Mangan are the latest actors to try their hands at the eponymous roles in JEEVES AND WOOSTER IN PERFECT NONSENSE at the cosy Duke of York's Theatre.

There have been many attempts at stage adaptions of PG Wodehouse's most famous creations, Bertie Wooster and his long suffering valet Jeeves. They are rarely a great success; JEEVES is Andrew Lloyd Webber's most famous flop, closing in 1975 after just 38 performances.

Wodehouse's upper class farces evoked sumptuous surroundings and countless characters, which make for wonderful TV adaptions, but an expensive nightmare for the stage. Director Sean Foley and adapters the Goodale Brothers find an ingenious solution of which Jeeves himself would have been proud. The play is in fact a play within a play - Bertie Wooster ripping down the fourth wall promising to tell the audience all about his latest japes. When his attempts at a solo show fail miserably, who else steps to his aid but, of course, Jeeves (With a little help from his aunt's butler, Steppings - an almost show stealing performance from Mark Hadfield)?

The conceit works well and evokes a REDUCED SHAKESPEARE COMPANY meets THE 39 STEPS feel with rapid costume changes and the two gentlemen's gentlemen playing multiple gender swapping roles. Alice Power's clever utilitarian set (made by Jeeves' fair hand of course) also works well and provides laughs of its own as the hapless hero fails to find doors and windows. However, after a while there is a feeling that the play relies way too much on this one joke.

Mangan's rubber face and infectious smile is delightful as he some how gets into and out of all kinds of mischief. And Hadfield's performances as 5 foot something wealthy Aunt Dahlia and a 9 foot something gangster, before reverting to a doddering old butler, are simply superb. But Macfadyen seems to find it hard to escape the shadow of Stephen Fry - perhaps the most famous Jeeves. Even when he's barking away as the mean magistrate Sir Watkyn Bassett you feel he's invoking BLACKADDER.

JEEVES AND WOOSTER IN PERFECT NONSENSE is a well-crafted farce, with plenty for audiences to enjoy. But it never quite reaches the levels of a great comedy. With the bar set so high by ONE MAN TWO GUVNORS, this gentleman and his gentleman can't quite clear it.

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