Wodehouse on TV?

In response to this post, a reader asks how did I like the Fry and Laurie TV adaptations? Well, only up to a point is my answer. They are, probably, as good an effort as television can muster but they still, to my mind, fail to cut the mustard. An honorable failure, then. Or rather, to put it more charitably, they were closer to being a success than anyone had ay right to hope they would be.

Fry was, I always thought, rather too oleaginously piscine as Jeeves while Laurie played Bertie as – hard though this may be to believe – too much of a fat-headed ass. They got away with these excesses largely because the two friends act so well together; their timing and ease in each others company rescued them on numerous occasions. Equally, the costume, set design and music was as good as you could desire, I think, giving the series an attractive sheen that helped the viewer believe in this light-hearted nonsense.