The city will witness British humour at its best with the ‘Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense’, a blockbuster play from London’s West End.
Written by brothers David and Robert Goodale, the play is based on P G Wodehouse’s inimitable pair of master and butler, Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, who entertained readers for generations. With Bertie’s elaborate plans always going wrong, the usual eccentric characters and Jeeves stepping in to save the day, one can expect every minute of this play to be rib-tickling.
An adaptation of the novel, “The Code of the Woosters”, the play was first performed by Robert Goodale as a one-man show, 25 years ago.
“It was more like story-telling with Robert playing the role of all 12 characters in the book,” his brother David said. Back then too, the play had been a hit with audience.
After a friend suggested that it should be dramatised, the brothers revived the play, this time with three actors and it became an instant hit with audience in London. While staying true to the plot of the book, they have added dialogues and aspects from other Wodehouse novels too. This production captures an aspect which the several movie and television adaptations of this legendary pair have failed to in the past. “In the books, we see other characters through the eyes of Bertie who often makes them seem larger than life. In the play, since Bertie is narrating the story, we have used this idea to create gags,” David explained.
The performance will feature Matthew Carter in the role of Bertie Wooster, Joseph Chance as Jeeves and Robert Goodale as Seppings.
“The three of them also play the remaining eight characters so they are constantly changing costumes. But this is done so seamlessly that often the audience is shocked when they find out that there are only three people,” David said.
They have performed the play in Mumbai and Chennai and now they are coming to Bengaluru with seven shows starting Wednesday.
“Surprisingly, Indian audience is more familiar with Wodehouse novels than people in London. In one of our shows in Chennai, there was someone who knew the dialogues by-heart!,” David said with delight.
The play will be performed in St John’s Auditorium from November 9 to 13.