Blandings

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.

I bought the series on DVD here in Belgium. As Board Member of the Belgium Wodehouse Club, I must say that I can appreciate every attempt to put the work of Wodehouse in the spotlights. Apart from the color of The Empress, I love the show and I hope that there will be more series in the pipeline! The actors are well chosen. The pig steels the show every week! I love Freddy Threepwood and I copied his hairstyle immediately! Aunt Constance is phenomenal in using her eyebrows! Wodehouse is an author that we may not forget! Every television show can help to turn the attention on his works. I am waiting for a television series about Ukridge! Or other characters out of the works of Pelham Granville Wodehouse. The settings in "Blandings" are phenomenal! I am very sorry for the tree that was chosen as brakes for the car of Freddy! I understand that the actor who plays beach will be replaced by an other actor. I am sorry for that!

I'm clearly much more easily pleased than some of my fellow reviewers, because I *love* this production. The cast is wonderful - Timothy Spall is toweringly magnificent as Lord Emsworth (though we did wonder why they tidied him up so much in Series 2?), Jennifer Saunders is very fine as the glowering Connie ("Im going .. to my room!"), the terrific Jack Farthing pretty nearly steals the show as the eternally daffy Freddie, Julian Rhind-Tutt is great as as the rakish Galahad, and Robert Bathurst provides sterling support as Emsworth's nemesis, "Stinker" Parsloe ... and of course, The Empress is gorgeous. I admit I haven't read the Blandings books yet, but I've seen many previous Wodehouse adaptations, and the tone of this series seems spot-on to me, without being slavishly intent on capturing every tiny nuance and detail of the original stories. And of course the sumptuous Irish locations are splendid. The only slight disappointment for me was the loss of the wonderful Mark Williams after Series One ... Tim Vine does a good job in Series Two, but Williams was so utterly *perfect* as the bibulous Beach that some slight disappointment is inevitable, and Tim perhaps played him a little too 'straight' ... but hey, it's a very minor quibble. I think you'd have to be an inflexible Wodehouse purist, or just a very hard-hearted viewer, not to find a great deal to enjoy in the delightful series - well-played, well-written, well-made. My family and I loved it unabashedly and wanted to watch it all over again as soon as it was finished. Pure delight.