Sounds

These are from Stephen Fry's introductions to Jeeves and Wooster on Masterpiece Theatre. They've been compressed into MP3 format, and can be listened to using Amp software from Nullsoft.

• P. G. Wodehouse in America
• Authentic Footage & Newspapers Used
• Madeline Bassett
• Ian Flemming & Pronunciation of British Names
• Who is Jeeves?
• Innocence of P. G. Wodehouse Stories
• Bertie's Stigma
• Living the Life While Filming
• His Signed Photograph of Wodehouse

There's a little anecdote over at the Hugh Laurie FAQ (by Peggy Haley) in RealAudio: Hugh Laurie Sounds

Articles

Quotes

On Making the Series:

Stephen Fry: Wodehouse described Jeeves' cough as 'like a sheep clearing its throat of a blade of grass on a distant hillside.' I tried practicing that but sounded more like a goat clearing its throat of a piece of cheese on a nearby hillside. These things are difficult.

Stephen Fry: We watched the dailies, and from the first moment we were saying to ourselves, 'It's got to speed up.' We got the clapper loader on the set to write the word PACE on the back of his clapboard, so that it would remind us at the beginning of every shot...

Stephen Fry: We're very conscious of trying to be fast, because one of the problems with most costume things is how immensely slow they've become . . .
Hugh Laurie: . . . My theory is that it's because in those (older) days the actors were wearing more or less contemporary clothes, and that if you put actors in period clothes now, they talk slower maybe because they feel less comfortable and more awkward. You put modern women in big hats and fur coats and broaches and gloves and handbags and all this gear, and therefore they feel more self-conscious and more obliged to give a stately sort of reading.
Stephen Fry: Whereas with comedy of this kind, one thinks of (recapturing the pacing of) those great movies of the '30s and '40s, the Capras and the Preston Sturgeses and the speed of Cary Grant going rat-a-tat-tat. . . . A '30s screenplay would probably be twice as many pages as a '90s screenplay. They just go at it at a heck of a lick.

Stephen Fry:[Filming without a studio audience gives] A much gentler rhythm to it.

Hugh Laurie: One hopes that people watch it because it is funny. P.G. Wodehouse was arguably the greatest comic writer who ever lived, I think. But in England a lot of the audience are watching it not because of the drama but because of the setting--Oh, I love those old clothes, they're all double-breasted suits, and those cars, so lovely with the big curves and chrome bumpers, and the big, lovely houses. Because it's a taste of a kind of garden of Eden that never really existed in England, or if it did, it wasn't on the scale that's suggested in Wodehouse. You can argue that it's an unhealthy facet--and I'm afraid it's our fault!

Stephen Fry: We aren't trying to say that we've got it right, because this is where others got it wrong, but the emphasis has been changed to suit today's television audiences..."

Hugh Laurie:It was particularly worrying to be asked to do it, because one knows what Wodehouse adorers are like. They all have an image of Jeeves and Wooster's world in their heads, and there is always the possibility that anybody who plays them might ruin that image. In fact, both Stephen and I were extremely sceptical until we read Clive Exton's scripts.

Stephen Fry: [The scripts were like] an antiseptic cream. They were so gracefully done, capturing all of Bertie Wooster's enchanting language. Theirs is a wonderful world, that one just wants to dive into it, like being able to dive into a soufflé.

The next 3 quotes were purloined from The Hugh Laurie FAQ.

Hugh Laurie: Actually, we nearly turned it down. We sort of did turn it down, because we thought it was an impossible thing to achieve....But then I read the scripts straight through at one sitting, which I don't normally do, since scripts are such dull things to read, and I just laughed...and so I rang up Stephen and said, 'Wait, don't, don't say no yet.'

Hugh Laurie: [Jeeves and Wooster] was just glorious to do...I always thought right from the first moment the scripts were absolutely fantastic. And funnily enough, the difficult bits were the funny bits....

Hugh Laurie: It was particularly worrying to be asked to do it, because one knows what Wodehouse adorers are like. They all have an image of Jeeves and Wooster's world in their heads, and there is always the possibility that anyone who plays them might ruin that image. In fact, both Stephen and I were extremely sceptical until we read Clive Exton's scripts.

On the Characters and Author:

Hugh Laurie: Bertie is such a good soul. His whole aim in life is to help his idiot friends out of trouble, and he really has no thought of self. You can imagine that he'd be very good company. His use of language is so fabulous that just asking you if you'd like a cup of tea would become an event.

Stephen Fry: [Wodehouse's world is] quite sui generis and prelapsarian.

Hugh Laurie: [As a child] I was crestfallen afterwards to be taken aside and told that none of that ever existed. Being told there was no such world was like that ghastly moment when you're told there is no Father Christmas.

Stephen Fry: [Jeeves & Wooster] is hardly stark reality.

Hugh Laurie: Of course Jeeves and Wooster in the books are fabulous characters, but they're characters in a fairly superficial sense. The real star of the thing is the language, and the beauty of it is the way the language just sort of skates, almost as if it were verse. You can't afford to take too much time about naturalism, really. The sentences are so beautifully constructed you want to hear them ping through in one go, without someone breaking it and doing a naturalistic um and an er and staring at the ceiling.

The next 3 quotes were purloined from The Stephen Fry FAQ.

Stephen Fry: The greatest pleasure I've ever gained from reading has been from the master, P.G. Wodehouse.

Stephen Fry: Everyone would like to have a Jeeves. He is not really a servant and he can't be because we would all be embarrassed by having a butler. We wouldn't know how to talk to him. It really goes back to Aladdin, with Jeeves as the genie. The genie could always mock his master.

Hugh Laurie: Jeeves is the guide, philosopher and friend everyone needs. The nanny to put you to bed at night and make sure you are comfortable.

On the Future of the Series:

Stephen Fry: We've probably shot our bolt. Twenty-three hours, I know (isn't much); an American series, if it's any success, goes on for 11 years like Cheers or something. But for a start, we're limited by the amount of stories P.G. Wodehouse told, because I don't think his estate, which is still active, would relish the idea of brand-new stories being made up.
Hugh Laurie: There's a possibility of a stage play based on a couple of the stories. We're sort of worried about doing a play, though, because it seems like it's cashing in on something that we've already done for four years.
Stephen Fry: John Cleese is convinced that we should do a movie, which I find utterly incomprehensible. But for television, anyhow, there's the limitation of the number of stories to start with--and also just a feeling, I suppose, on our part that we don't want to be too identified with those roles, and each of us is working on our own things.
Hugh Laurie: I'm going bald as well.

Hugh Laurie: You can't go on forever.

On Related Matters

Stephen Fry: I was sent a script for a Macaulay Culkin film in which I had to play a butler, 'Richie Rich'. I considered it for the purely absurd reason that any person would, which is - what an interesting experience. To work with this famous Macaulay Culkin with his famous father and this strange Hollywood machine. But it was not a very exciting part.

Stephen Fry: Servants never knock on doors, they just go straight in, and they should never register emotion. So if you were to walk into a room and there were three people naked throwing doughnuts at each other, you would merely say dinner is served.