Jack Gold 1995 UK
Starring: Peter O’Toole, Richard Briers, Judy Parfitt, Roy Hudd, Ronald Fraser, Rebecca Lacey, Samuel West, David Bamber, Benjamin Soames, Richard Johnson, Sarah Badel, Bryan Pringle
For a long while now I've been a great fan of the writer P.G. Wodehouse but screen adaptations of his work are few and fair between and he's certainly not given the level of attention afforded to other authors. In many ways it's unsurprising as a large amount of the joy of his prose rests on the flowing descriptions and narration, presumably a difficult entity to transfer from the written word. One of the few Wodehouse pieces to be given television treatment is also probably his best-known, the gentleman and valet comedy Jeeves and Wooster, and existed as an ITV production for three years with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie in the respective roles. In my opinion however his greatest achievement is the series of stories based around Blandings Castle, its perpetually befuddled master Lord Clarence Of Emsworth (a man interested far less in his duties than in his pet pig, The Empress), his upstanding, problem-solving butler Beach and his various relatives. Very recently these tales have found their way onto BBC1 with Timothy Spall successfully if not entirely accurately playing Clarence, Julian Rhind-Tutt bursting with charm but really too young as his younger brother, the mischievous gadabout Galahad Threepwood, and Jennifer Saunders dazzling with menace as his snobbish, repressed sister Constance. In 1995 however another attempt was made. The piece in question, Heavy Weather, is an odd bugger, shown only once on Christmas Eve that year and, at the point of this review, never repeated despite an all-star British cast, a talented and well-known director and the fact that reductive horse manure like Terry and June gets daily airings on Sky. Nor has it ever been released on DVD and really the only way to see it in the modern day is care of a kind but worryingly Conservative poster on YouTube. In it Peter O'Toole is Clarence and Richard Briers is Gally although the casting could easily be reversed in the theatrical tradition with the prospective result just as satisfying. O'Toole is decent although perhaps a little too close to caricature but throws in plenty of little touches like a look of innocent wonder at the sight of the Empress safely where she should be and Briers is excellent, along with the script never hiding the darkness behind Gally's roguish façade, the glint of malevolence in his eye, the alcoholism behind his freewheeling lifestyle and the overcompensation of his plethora of anecdotes, his fatherly protection of Rebecca Lacey's Sue, the daughter of the woman he was prevented from marrying in his youth because of her lower class origins. As Sue Lacey strikes just the right combination of warmth and chutzpah but also of note are Roy Hudd, casting a unshakably dashing figure of a totally different variety to Briers, and an unrecognizable Bryan Pringle as raving 'pig man' Pirbright. For those unfamiliar with Wodehouse the film's plot of misunderstanding and crossed purposes may come across as a little basic and contrived and the books would probably be a better avenue to begin with but for existing fans it's a fun way to spend an hour and a half and a distinctly more faithful one than the current series. Nothing special but a good time nonetheless.PETER O'TOOLE
No comments:
Post a Comment