If your idea of British country gentry comes from Downton Abbey, P. G. Wodehouse’s Blandings will orrect that very quickly.
Lord Emsworth and his Blandings family are a far cry from Lord Grantham and the
Downton crew.
A two disc DVD set of the six episode first series of the
British TV adaptation of the Wodehouse stories is scheduled for release in the
U. S. on September 3 from Acorn. The series stars Timothy Spall as Clarence
Emsworth, the Lord of the manor, a bumbling, but lovable eccentric whose only
real interest in life is his beloved pig, Empress. Jennifer Saunders plays his
disapproving sister whose main object in life seems to be to civilize her
brother. Mark Williams is the dependable butler who is as much a friend of the
family as he is a servant, and Jack Farthing is the heir to the estate, a silly
fool of a ne’er do well.
Classic stereotypes, these and the supporting characters are
all played with broad strokes just short of the kind of thing you’d be likely
to see in a Benny Hill sketch. Lord Emsworth can’t remember anyone’s name,
indeed he can’t remember much of anything. Saunders’ Connie is a controlling
martinet, and Williams’ butler is the essence of practical wisdom. Minor
characters are similarly stereotypical: a Scottish gardener with an accent so
thick no one can understand a word he says, a fortune hunting widow with a
bratty young son, a chorus girl masquerading as a foreign princess. There isn’t
an actor in this cast who is unwilling to go over the top. It’s almost as
though they were told the broader the better. And not only do they get away
with it, they embrace the silliness and it works.
The plots of each of the episodes are farcical enough to
justify the acting style. The first episode deals with a contest for the
fattest pig, the last with the fortune hunter’s machinations. There are
episodes concerning his sister Connie’s attempt to straighten Lord Emsworth out
by hiring a controlling secretary, her ploys to keep various nieces away from
suitors that she finds unsuitable, and one where the foolish Freddy thinks he’s
married a showgirl.
Much of the humor deals with things like pigs with gas,
manure, clumsy suitors knocking over furniture, manure, mistaken identities,
manure, visiting city ragamuffins, and manure. Did I mention muck? Talk about
an excremental vision. If you’re looking for gentile drawing room comedy, Blandings is not for you
By any reasonable meausure, I should hate this show. By any
reasonable measure but one; it can be laugh out loud funny. The characters may
be unrealistic stereotypes, the acting may be way over the top, the directors
may indulge themselves in silly sight gags, but none of that really matters if
you find yourself laughing. And there wasn’t an episode that didn’t manage to
get me laughing. Frothy perhaps, but how often is it that show aims at froth
and falls flat. Certainly not all the gags work, but enough do to make this
show a lot of fun. Effective froth is no mean achievement.
Lord Emsworth and his family may not remind many viewers of
the Downton crew, they are certainly pale shadows of Wodehouse’s own Jeeves and
Bertie Wooster, but how many are there that measure up to bars that high. Blandings is a lot of fun.
