I remember watching this delightful series in 1965. It was usually televised on a Sunday night at ten to nine, after the Sunday film and "Doctor Finlay's Casebook".
It was the programme that first introduced me to the hilariously funny novels of P.G. Wodehouse and the inimitable acting style of Ian Carmichael, playing the dithering, monocled Bertie Wooster. His aristocratic manner and posh accent allowed him to be the perfect personification of a well-meaning, aristocratic man about town in the 1920s. The way he stuttered gave his stammer an admirable quality, rather than being pitifully viewed as a nervous impediment.
Dennis Price played the character of Wooster's manservant, Jeeves, impeccably.
I would like to know where P.G. Wodehouse acquired the idea of a well-off man of infinitely wealthy means, who was always unwittingly getting into trouble. Towards the end of the show, it always looked as if Wooster's trouble would never end and he saw himself plunging into a bottomless pit of inexorable suffering - sometimes even meaning that he may have to get a job. However, at the very last moment, Jeeves would step in with an ingenious solution that would bring his masters troubles to an end.
As with most of the P.G. Wodehouse stories, the series was set in the 1920s, and the show gave the era a touch of glamour. It was as if poor people did not exist in those days.
As with most television period dramas and comedies made in the 1960s, the atmosphere was very authentic. The clothing design and the incidental music really made you think that you were really living in that era.
Each episode was only 30 minutes long, so a lot of editing was involved to make it adaptable for television. Despite this, although the later series of "Jeeves and Wooster", starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, was transmitted in colour and had better sets and production values, I still think I enjoyed this version of the P.G. Wodehouse stories more.
It is a pity that out of the 20 episodes of this brilliant series that were made, only one or two still exist, as I would love to watch them all again.
