By Jeeves
By Jeeves, originally Jeeves, is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and lyrics and book by Alan Ayckbourn. It is based on the series of novels and short stories by P. G. Wodehouse that centre around the character of Bertie Wooster and his loyal valet, Jeeves.
By Jeeves
Alan Ayckbourn
Jeeves stories
by P. G. Wodehouse
1975 West End
1996 West End revival
1996 Goodspeed Opera House
2001 Broadway
2007 UK tour
Premiering on April 22, 1975, at Her Majesty's Theatre in London, the show flopped initially, running for only a month. After an extensive rewrite, the show was produced in 1996 in both London and America, and premiered on Broadway in 2001.
1975: Jeeves[edit]
Background and production[edit]
Tim Rice conceived the idea of turning P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves stories into a musical. Originally, he was to work with his then-partner, Andrew Lloyd Webber, but Rice backed out of the project.[1] Eventually Lloyd Webber teamed up with famed British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, and the two of them began work with the personal blessing of Wodehouse. Ayckbourn utilised characters and plot lines from several Jeeves and Wooster stories, notably The Code of the Woosters. The action takes place at the East London Club for Unmanageable Boys, where Bertie Wooster is playing a banjo concert; his banjo keeps breaking down, so he is forced to tell stories to pass the time while Jeeves is sent off to fetch new strings. Bertie recounts how he managed to become engaged to three ladies simultaneously and how his valet Jeeves (through ingenious intervention) unravelled the complications.
Tryout performances were held at the Bristol Hippodrome between 20 March and 5 April 1975. According to the programme, the Bristol show was presented by David Land and Guy Bolton.[2] Unfortunately, the loyalty to the Wodehouse material made for an epic length (four and three-quarter hours at the Bristol tryouts), and reducing the duration made for creative tensions.[3] Rows broke out about the presence of an all-male singing sextet accompanying Bertie Wooster and the realization that the first woman did not appear on stage until thirty-five minutes had passed.[1] Additional problems were caused by Ayckbourn's lack of interest in musical theater as a genre: he was quoted at one point as saying, "I think musicals are pretty damn boring, but I hope this one is a bit different", and he ended up writing a book that could hypothetically stand on its own without songs.[4]
Lloyd Webber wrote a period score that eschewed all traces of the pop inflections of his work on Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Jesus Christ Superstar. The sound of trumpets, banjos and saxophones for this score were written by a group of arrangers: Keith Amos, Don Walker, Lloyd Webber himself and his future orchestrator, David Cullen.
The show opened in London on 22 April 1975 at Her Majesty's Theatre, starring David Hemmings as Bertie Wooster and Michael Aldridge as Jeeves. The role of Madeleine Bassett was performed by T.V. actress Gabrielle Drake. Other cast members included Debbie Bowen, Gordon Clyde, Angela Easterling, John Turner, Bill Wallis and David Wood. Actress Betty Marsden was cast as Aunt Dahlia, but the role and the accomplished actress were released before opening night.[5]
The director Eric Thompson (father of actress Emma Thompson) was fired just before the opening, so Ayckbourn himself stepped in, aided by choreographer Christopher Bruce. The production received poor reviews and closed after little over a month and 38 performances, on 24 May. Several critics noted that the authors failed to develop the title character, Jeeves not even having a solo song.
The original cast album (MCA Cat. No. MCF 2726) was recorded and released, but it is extremely hard to find. Lloyd Webber, reportedly acting on the advice of American theatre director Harold Prince, withdrew the recording in order to be able to reuse some of the musical material in subsequent shows.
1996: By Jeeves[edit]
Background[edit]
In 1996, Lloyd Webber and Ayckbourn decided to revisit the show, jettisoning most of the score and the entire original book. Retitled By Jeeves (so as to dispel all previous associations with the original production), the character of Roderick Spode and his fascistic intentions were eliminated from the plot. The character list was whittled down from 22 to 10, and the original orchestrations also underwent a reduction to a small band. Only three songs from the original show remained lyrically intact: "Banjo Boy", "Half a Moment" and "Travel Hopefully", as well as the chorus for Code of the Woosters. The other songs and musical interludes were mostly new or reworked compositions by Lloyd Webber.
Productions[edit]
By Jeeves re-opened on 1 May 1996 at the Stephen Joseph Theatre-in-the-round in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, an English seaside resort. Audience reaction was generally enthusiastic so the show moved on 2 July 1996 to London for a 12-week season at the fairly intimate Duke of York's Theatre. The show turned out to be more popular than first thought, and the run was extended to February 1997 with the show moved to The Lyric Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue.[11]
Steven Pacey played Bertie Wooster and Malcolm Sinclair played his valet Jeeves. The Musical Director was Kate Young. The 1996 cast recording has an unusual format, taking a track between every song where Bertie and Jeeves humorously summarize the plot.[12] Pacey was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical, and By Jeeves also received nominations for Outstanding New Production and Best Costume Designer.[13] A radio version, performed by the original London cast, was broadcast on 14 December 1996 on BBC Radio 2.[14]
The show had its United States premiere on 12 November 1996, at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam Connecticut. U.S. actor John Scherer took the part of Bertie, and Richard Kline played Jeeves.[15] Edward Keith Baker played Jeeves with Scherer as Bertie Wooster in the 1997 Geffen Playhouse production.[16]
A pre-Broadway staging of the musical was presented at Pittsburgh Public Theater's O'Reilly Theater in February 2001.[17] It ran through 4 March 2001. John Scherer portrayed Bertie Wooster and British actor Martin Jarvis portrayed Jeeves.[18]
By Jeeves had a brief run on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theater, from 28 October 2001 (in previews October 16) to 30 December 2001, for 73 performances. Directed by Ayckbourn, the cast featured Scherer (Bertie), James Kall (Gussie) and Martin Jarvis (Jeeves) (who received the Theatre World Award).[19]
In the 2011 production of the musical at the Landor Theatre in Clapham, London, Kevin Trainor played Bertie Wooster, with Paul M. Meston as Jeeves.[20]
The musical was produced in 2017 at the Old Laundry Theatre, Bowness-on-Windermere (UK), with Alan Ayckbourn as the director. Nadim Naaman portrayed Bertie Wooster and Bill Champion portrayed Jeeves.[6]