ajhlovestheatre

JEEVES TAKES CHARGE

by P G Wodehouse 

Adapted by James and Edward Duke

Co-adapted and directed by Hugh Wooldridge

Charing Cross Theatre, London – until 6 September 2026

Running time: 2 hours including interval

https://charingcrosstheatre.co.uk/theatre/jeeves-takes-charge

Connoisseurs of a certain gilded camp silliness that is peculiarly English and entirely inconsequential, should hasten to Charing Cross Theatre, where Jeeves Takes Charge, first seen in the West End in 1980, emerges as though suspended in champagne jelly like a shiny, semi-precious relic from a bygone era. Distilled from P G Wodehouse’s popular though thoroughly archaic Jeeves and Wooster stories, chronicling the misadventures of a bumptious but well meaning early twentieth century high society bon viveur and his wry, all-seeing butler, it doesn’t amount to much beyond amiable, gentle light entertainment, boozy and woozy. 

This revival is exquisitely, lovingly, produced, and features an athletic tour de force solo performance from Sam Harrison. It’s unlikely to gain Wodehouse any new fans but it will be delightful for anybody who books tickets knowing exactly what they’re going to get. Caite Hevner’s set and video designs are particularly impressive. The scenery is a fairly standard fireplace, bay window and sofa arrangement, but the astonishingly precise and technically accomplished video embellishments are extraordinary. A London drawing room transforms in a heartbeat to Brighton seafront, a breathless journey through the countryside, a cosy but naff fete…the list goes on. It’s all beautifully rendered and lends the text an interest that it probably wouldn’t have unaided. 

Script devisers Edward Duke (who starred in the first production, winning an Olivier award) and James Duke have done a capable job of filleting Wodehouse’s madcap original material and compressing it into a series of anecdotes, put over with irrepressible verve by the indefatigable Harrison. He embodies both leading characters, and also the motley crew of other privileged, exotically monikered creations of Wodehouse’s imagination, including Gussie Fink-Nottle, formidable Aunt Agatha and Wooster’s stridently bossy financée Lady Florence Craye. His physical comedy skills are a joy (look out for his attempts to rouse himself from a sofa while severely hung over), and he bites into Wodehouse’s baroque, literate language with a relish that proves contagious.

Personally, I could have lived without the pair of over-enthusiastic public schoolgirls apparently escaped from Daisy Pulls It Off and employed to put up bunting and whip up flagging audience enthusiasm. Hugh Wooldridge’s production probably outstays its welcome by at least ten minutes, and, at least on the night I saw it, was punctuated with rather less helpless laughter than one might have hoped. 

Still, Harrison is superb, the show looks very pretty, and the whole production is suffused with such affection it’s hard not to be charmed. Times have changed but Bertie Wooster remains twinklingly out-of-touch and Jeeves retains his lugubrious wit.