Blandings

I had high hopes for Blandings based on Jennifer Saunders' involvement. While she is quite good, the whole cast of regulars is excellent.

Unfortunately the first couple of episodes were just so-so and may have put off some reviewers who were in a rush to judgment when writing up their overly critical posts here. And there are a few occasional characters, like Baxter, who seem to not be quite on a par with the others, but their short-comings are more pronounced because the rest of the cast/characters are so excellent.

By the third and fourth episodes, the actors seem to have found their pace and settled very well into their characters. Timothy Spall is fantastic. Freddie, Beach, the maniacal gardener ... all of them are great in their roles and are laugh-out-loud funny.

Yes it is silly and yes it is quite different from the earlier Wodehouse inspired productions. If you want to see Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry playing Bertie and Jeeves, then this is not a rehash of the slower paced, repetitive, 1950's, I Love Lucy style Wodehouse that they did so well. If that's your cuppa' ... and I enjoyed that series too ... then by all means watch them. Comparing the two serves no useful purpose.

I've been reading Wodehouse pretty much all my life. I love the lightness, the frothy confusion and the way he wove the characters into living, breathing people on the page. And as such, I approached the arrival of 'Blandings' with a mix of excitement and fear. Fear, because it's notoriously difficult to get Wodehouse from the page to the screen.

The first episode seemed to reinforce all those fears, presenting me with a show that bore little resemblance to those 'living breathing people' that my long association with Wodehouse had let loose inside my head. However, things were to change, and for the better....

Fry and Laurie's approach back in the 90s with Jeeves and Wooster was to throw every line out with gusto, and hope that, on occasion, some of them hit the mark. By and large they succeeded. This wasn't the approach with Blandings.

With Blandings, it's very much the character interaction that drives the show, and so it was as much the delivery as the dialogue that was going to make or break the show. And in the beginning, things looked bleak. However, as the series progressed, I did find myself warming more to the actors. Tim Spall plays Emsworth with a mix of muddle-headedness and down-trodden persecution, constantly trying to squirm out from under the thumb of Jennifer Saunders' Lady Constance. Mark Williams performance as Beach was surprisingly good, especially as Beach is described as 'stately' in the novels, and one thing that Williams isn't, is stately. Jack Farthing is air-headed, frivolous and spend-thrift as Freddie, and swings from annoying to endearing.

The other characters go a long way to supporting the main cast, especially Cyril Wellbeloved, Angus McAllister, and the slimy Baxter. There's also a stream of female visitors, some of which could grace my table anytime. Pandora and Monica Simmons were especially striking.

The dialogue was, on occasion, very good indeed, and strangely in keeping with what Wodehouse may have written, were he sitting down today to write Blandings for the first time.

Now the series has ended, I'm left hoping for a second to be commissioned, and will no doubt be paying for the DVD - and this is something I never thought I would be saying after the first episode.

Perhaps because I'm American, I can't help but think how ungrateful the UK reviewers are here. You want to watch dreadful comedy? Watch any US network on any night on our side of the lake. I love PG Wodehouse...he is criminally unread here in the States. And, having loved Jeeves and Wooster and all it's charm (Laurie and Fry)...I'm thrilled for this adaptation. I think the actors (and casting) are great. The writing is sharp. It is a little disheveled aesthetically, but I think it works here.

I'm looking forward to the rest of this and frankly if viewers in the UK don't want it...please send it (and company) over to us and take back Downton Drabby.

Saunders is always a fave but her lines omg. Her threats and superficial social climbing and Farthing and Spall are spot in. Poor put upon Butler Beach is such a great foil. Wow I laughed out loud a lot. Enjoy. Downtown Abbey gone off the rails.

We should not, I think, judge Blandings by the standards of realistic contemporary comedy. I agree that characters do not seem realistic in some respects and that the acting and effects in Season 1 are more artificially (Freddy's forelock rising and falling at the sight of a pretty female, for example), but both seasons have grown on me--I like them both. Both butlers Beach are wonderful, each in his own way. But both seasons are based on Wodehouse's brilliantly comedic language and absurd plots and unforgettably archetypal characters--plagues in the form of aunts/sisters, guardian-crossed lovers, butlers with more sense than their employers, frivolous young men who live for nightlife and fall in love with a succession of pretty young women, and leading male characters of the upper class who have a hobby-horse (in this case, the Empress) and are one cartload shy of a full load of fertilizer. I only wish there were 10 seasons of this delightful fluff.