A talented group of actors is preparing a delicious follow-up to the smash hit, Jeeves in Bloom.
Jeeves Intervenes brings back to the Chemainus Theatre last year’s Jeeves and Wooster (Bernard Cuffling and Warren Bain) plus Barbara Pollard as Aunt Agatha, Brian Linds as Sir Rupert, Olivia Hutt as Gertrude Winklesworth-Bode and Seth Little as Eustace Bassington-Bassington.
The show opens Sept. 11 and runs until Oct. 3.
Cuffling is thrilled to reprise his take on the wooden-faced but all-knowing and ever-resourceful manservant, Jeeves, and took time out to talk between rehearsals last week.
“We had such fun with the other Jeeves and it was a big success, too. We sort of knew at the time that we were going to do Part Two. Mark DuMez asked if we’d be available to come back and we said yes, love to and here we are,” he said.
Part of the joy of preparing for this show is that Cuffling and Bain now know Jeeves and Wooster inside and out.
“They’re such interesting characters. To play Jeeves, I cannot afford, as an actor, to make any mistake on that stage. If I drop a teaspoon, it’s almost like a house of cards. Jeeves has got to be perfection,” he said.
There’s an interesting aspect to the difficulty of playing Jeeves, according to Cuffling.
“As actors we rely on dialogue — talking to each other — but in Jeeves Intervenes, I have to be looking out so I have to know the script very well. And it’s tough because I’m introducing things or waiting to be spoken to. I’m not part of a conversation; I really have to concentrate. Particularly in this production where I have many more entrances and exits with tea things and glasses and coats and such.”
Each one fraught with peril.
“It’s a much more technical production than last time. Which also means timing has to be perfect, of course.”
Author, P.G. Wodehouse provides terrific material that has a wide appeal.
“Last year, on Wednesdays, we had talk backs and we found so many people in the audience had read the entire collection of Wodehouse. We had people coming from all over the Island to see it. It’s that wonderful era of the ’20s, that air of gentility; people love that. We’ve got beautiful characters and we’ve got great writing.”
But that offers many opportunities for slip-ups so Cuffling has to be constantly on his toes.
“What I find the most difficult is I have to keep repeating their names and we’ve got names like Mr. Bassington-Bassington and Miss Gertrude Winklesworth-Bode. Beautiful names but they’re real tongue twisters. So even at this late stage in my career I have to do voice exercises to get ready.”
But it’s a lot of fun and he’s enjoying working with the cast.
“If it goes as well as last time and there’s no reason it shouldn’t, it looks like we’ll have a hit on our hands. None of us knew how it would work last year, with the dialogue being figurative and beautiful. It might have been too much to take but the audience just took to it straight away,” Cuffling said.
He thinks audiences are going to love the escape into gentility and comedy.
“I keep telling myself that I’m not going to turn on the TV. Look what we’ve gone through on the west coast this year with the forest fires. With this show, for two hours you can be transported into a totally other world and a new era. It’s harmless, it’s fun, it’s frothy, it’s a delight,” he said.
Pollard wasn’t in Jeeves In Bloom but is well aware that there is a horde of Wodehouse fans ready to storm the battlements to see this second instalment.
“I was visiting my aunt and uncle up in Comox and he was in the air force as a young flyer in the war. He said, ‘Oh! Jeeves. Are you playing Aunt Agatha?’ And I cried: ‘Yes, you know who I am!’”
And Pollard has met other Wodehouse-fanciers.
“So many people who grew up in England grew up on those books. I’m not familiar with them but I think I will be now. And I love that this audience gets the same Jeeves and Bertie because they’re awfully, awfully good at their parts,” she said.
Two fine actors who know their characters inside and out builds a firm foundation for a good show overall.
“It’s so funny. I’ve never been so prepared. We were off book and doing run-throughs four days ago and that was in the middle of the second week. There’s not a lot of subtext, of course, it’s not Chekhov, but we can still finesse the timing and the comedy. So, all day, it’s very talented people going over and over and over something to make it funnier.”
Every play, movie or book about that era seems to have an aunt in it somewhere and in this play, it’s Pollard’s Aunt Agatha.
“Oh yes, there is this foil in the elder female who has money and power. She lords it over young men. That’s a great and cruel punishment but oh, so fun. They talk about me as if I chew glass with my teeth and wear barbed wire next the skin so when I come in you’ve got this image in your mind of this terrible, terrible, nasty person. But it’s just because Aunt Agatha has a say in his life.”
Audiences are going to love Jeeves Intervenes, in Pollard’s view.
“I’ve seen the jokes and know the timing and I’m laughing all day long. It’s good for your soul to laugh that hard, not to mention being extremely good for your lungs and your digestion,” she said.
The production offers theatregoers all the classic aspects of British comedy but “I think they’ll be surprised and delighted at the level of physical antics and verbal repartee. It’s all there.”
Tickets are available now by going online at chemainustheatre.ca or by calling the box office at 1-800-565-7738.
Show enhancements are available, and include: free talk-backs with the cast and crew following Wednesday performances and a special show-themed dinner in the Playbill Dining Room.
