Jeeves and Wooster
2.1: Jeeves Saves the Cow Creamer
(aka The Silver Jug)
(aka The Silver Jug)
Season Two of Jeeves and Wooster continues the high standard of the previous
year’s last two episodes, appropriately since it takes after its literary
precedent; Season One ended with a two-part adaptation of Right Ho, Jeeves, which PG Wodehouse followed four years later with
The Code of the Woosters. Published
in 1938, it was the third full-length outing for Bertie and his genius
gentleman’s gentleman, and the first time Plum visited Totleigh Towers, home of
imperious nerve specialist Sir Watykn Bassett. If I say “Spode”, and add “Eulalie”,
its classic status in the canon will no doubt come flooding back to you.
Sir Watkyn has already graced our screens, of course, in the very first
episode, adapting Bertram Wilberforce’s recollection from this very The Code of the Woosters of his
policeman’s hat-stealing incident, and for the most part, like the season
finale before it, Clive Exton recognises a good thing when he sees it and is
remarkably faithful to the novel. There are omissions, in particular the
subplot concerning Anatole the cook, and Bertie delivers the cow creamer into
Sir Watkyn’s eager hands via a piece of superbly timed, cat-tripping slapstick
(no need to utilise cold lobsters and sliced cucumbers to delay Uncle Tom from
its purchase), but it’s very much a case of pruning rather than serious
truncation.
Bertie Wooster: I
expect it’s absolutely rotten.
Shopkeeper: It’s a
beautiful cow creamer!
Simon Langton (Smiley’s People, the BBC Pride and Prejudice) does a terrific job
keeping the episode rattling along (variable Totleigh weather and all). Events
are ignited by Bertie’s reluctant obeyance to the wishes of his Aunt Dahlia
(Vivian Pickles). He makes his way to Bond Street in order to “sneer at a cow creamer”, so warming the
seller up for Uncle Tom, who will offer a lesser price. Bertie has a sore head,
having attended Gussie’s bachelor party (picking up from the events of Brinkley
Manor), albeit given the subsequent altercations, he might have thought twice
about toasting him as “a good egg, and a
persuasive man with a newt”. Particularly amusing is Jeeves suggestion that
his master assert the creamer to be of modern Dutch manufacture (“The Dutch, sir, while an admiral people in
many ways and renowned for their domestic hygiene, are not considered to be of
the first rank in matters of argentine craftsmanship”).
Sir Watkyn recognises
Bertie at the shop, sort of, believing he sent Bertie down for bag snatching,
giving him a shilling and instructing him “Don’t
spend it on drink” before setting the police after him when he believes
Wooster has attempted to purloin the creamer; in a truly venerable moment, the
pursuing bobby is unlucky enough to enter the Drones Club where, to the universal
cry of “Bluebottle!”, he is assaulted
with dozens of bread rolls.
Bertie Wooster: Gussie
made an ass of himself again.
While the episode is
blessed with the return of Richard Garnett as Gussie, unfortunately Pickles is
a much less effective Aunt Agatha, lacking the superior warmth towards her
nephew Brenda Bruce brought to the previous season; it would be Pickles’ sole
appearance in the role (with two more one-off Agathas to follow). The new Barmy,
Martin Clunes (replacing Adam Blackwood) is a splendid fit though, Clunes exerting
a cheerfully baffled air at every turn (he even entertains the Spode’s unseemly
notions). Rather than threats of a withholding Anatole’s cooking, it’s the
prospect of the nuptials between Gussie and Madeline falling through that inspire
Bertie to visit Totleigh; Gussie has been haplessly arousing her suspicions of
infidelity (finding a speck in Stiffy’s eye), and Bertie is desperate to have
them tie the knot post haste (“You can’t
be married too soon to a chap like Gussie”). Madeline is also new, and Diana
Blackburn looks closer to the part than Francesca Folan, but she’s still not
quite insipid enough; Elizabeth Heery in the last two seasons is easily the
best.
Bertie isn’t the only
one on a cow creamer-fuelled mission. The forceful Stephanie “Stiffy” Byng
(Charlotte Attenborough, who played her in this and the last season) attempts
to coerce Bertie into snatching it in order that Bertie’s old pal and purveyor
of muscular Christianity Reverend HP “Stinker” Pinker (Simon Treeves) may garner
the approval of Sir Watkyn to wed Stiffy (he’s Stiffy’s ward and disapproves of
marriage to a “penniless curate”).
It’s a rotten plan, one that ends with Stinker bashing Spode on the head with a
cricket bat. Stiffy spends more time harassing and insulting the hapless and
dim Constable Eustace Oates (Campbell Morrison, also recast in the next two
seasons). When her dog Bartholomew isn’t, that is. Bartholomew doesn’t like
bicycles, and Stiffy has no truck with Oates’ protest that he can’t walk (“Do you good get some of the fat off you”).
Stiffy Byng: You don’t mean you won’t do it.
Bertie Wooster: I do
mean I won’t do it.
Bertie’s unwavering
refusal to submit to Stiffy’s wishes is at least refreshing (“And then I go off and do my stretch in
Dartmoor”), parting with “A pig maybe,
but a shrewd, level-headed pig who wasn’t born yesterday and has seen a thing
or two”. This firmness fails to keep him out of trouble, however, since Aunt
Dahlia has also rocked up with designs on the creamer, while the dreaded Spode
is convinced he’s up to no good.
John Turner makes for
a magnificent Roderick Spode, blustering leader of the Black Shorts (also called
the Saviours of Britain), an entirely transparent and glorious dig at Oswald
Mosely (who, in his time, was a conservative MP, an independent, labour, founded
the New Party, and then the British
Union of Fascists). Spode assumes mantle of amateur dictator, wistful for a
Britain past, complete with nonsensical statements even Nigel Farrage might
blanche at. He demands “the right, nay
the responsibility, of every freeborn Englishman to grow his own potatoes”,
an immediate ban on foreign root vegetables into the United Kingdom, and the
compulsive scientific measurement of all adult male knees (“The British knee is firm, muscular, on the
march”). His vegetable fixation includes plans for allocating produce
according to county: turnips and broad beans in Wiltshire, potatoes in Scotland
and the lowlands (“It has all been
scientifically worked out, I assure you”).
This eventually
results is one of Bertie’s rare articulate rebukes, as he gives it to the
moustache-wearing bully with both barrels: “The
trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you’ve succeed in inducing a
handful of halfwits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black
shorts you think you’re someone. You hear them shouting, ‘Heil Spode!’ and you
imagine it is the voice of the people. That is where you make your bloomer.
What the voice of the people is saying is, ‘Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking
about in footer bags. Did you ever in your puff see such a perisher?”
It takes some time for
Bertie to get to that point, however. In the novel, Sir Watkyn is looking to
getting hitched to Spode’s aunt, absent here, although Spode’s interest in
little Madeline is present and correct, which means he takes a particular
dislike to Gussie. When he isn’t threatening Bertie, calling him a “miserable worm” and instructing him that
if he discovers he has stolen the creamer he will “beat you to a jelly” (“It
might be an improvement” responds Dahlia), he is bursting in on him looking
for Gussie (“Wooster!” he exclaims,
to which Laurie reacts with another masterful slice of slapstick, cigarettes
flying everywhere).
Spode: Tell him I’m going to break his
neck.
Bertie Wooster: Oh, why?
Spode: Because he’s a butterfly who
toys with women’s hearts and throws them aside like soiled gloves.
Bertie Wooster: Do
butterflies do that?
Bertie has been
reading The Ghost of Moreton Manor,
so he’s naturally quite concerned when he hears emanations from the wardrobe (“Do you bring a message from the other side?”)
It’s just Gussie though, indulging in craven scooting (“I thought these dictators were meant to be thorough” notes Bertie
of Spode’s slackness). It should be noted that much of the cow creamer business
has been altered; it isn’t stashed in Gussie’s suitcase, and instead Jeeves
craftily attaches it as a hood ornament to the Rolls, dropping it off to Dahlia
on departure; as such, after it is stolen, Bertie remains oblivious to its
whereabouts until the final scene.
The most memorable
part of a highly memorable episode is the saga of Eulalie, which requires
Jeeves to “get the goods on Spode”
through a visit to the Junior Ganymede. We learn of Rule 11, whereby full
information on masters, past and present, is required by the gentleman’s
gentlemen members, making for entertaining reading on wet afternoons (“… came home from Pongo Twistelton’s and
mistook the lampshade for a burglar” is a particular favourite). We even
get to see Jeeves announce of his master, “Really
quite promising. I always suspected I could make something of him”.
Bertie Wooster: Spode
qua menace, if qua is the word I’m after, is a thing of the past.
Jeeves’ simple
instruction (he cannot divulge its pertinence, at least, not in this episode; Spode’s
particular secret is, of course, that he designs and sells women’s underwear)
that Bertie “Inform him you know all
about Eulalie” inevitably goes terribly wrong when Wooster, with Spode in
hot pursuit of Gussie, throws a “You fat
slob!” the amateur dictator’s way but has a difficult time recalling the
crucial word (“Spode, I know your secret.
I know all about… Ephymol… Eureka... Euclid... Eucalyptus... Euripides... Eucharist...
Eunuch… Euphonium… (Jeeves hands Bertie a piece of paper with the correct
word) Eulalie!”) So it’s very
fortunate that Jeeves is on hand, resulting in Spode instantly volte facing (“Say goodnight nicely to Mr Fink-Nottle”
instructs Bertie sternly). This is classic farce, ranking as both one of the
best Woodhouse novels and one of the best adaptations.
Sources:
The Code of the Woosters
Recurring characters:
Aunt Dahlia (1.2, 1.4,
1.5, 2.1)
Sir Watkyn Bassett
(1.1, 2.1)
Sir Roderick Spode (2.1)
Madeline Basset (1.4,
1.5, 2.1)
Gussie Fink-Nottle
(1.4, 1.5, 2.1)
Rev H P “Stinker”
Pinker (2.1)
Stephanie “Stiffy”
Byng (2.1)
Constable Oates (2.1)
“Barmy”
Fotheringay-Phipps (1.1, 1,2, 1.4, 1.5, 2.1)
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.
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