PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast - Stephen Fry

Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast started posting their video's to YouTube about a year ago. I hadn't notice this before, not that I had been looking, and was happy to find them when I was searching for Stephen Fry videos the other day. Herring had done a podcast from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and that ran from 2011 to 2013. The Leicester Square Theatre Podcast started in 2012 and it's still going after 116 episodes. There have been 9 series of podcasts, the first two were audio only. There's a paying audience at the theatre, at over 20 bucks a seat, but you can see the podcast for free online. You used to have to pay for the video version but it's been free for a while. Herring uses Kickstarter to fund production. I plan to watch a lot of the videos when I get the time, in particular Dara  O Briain, Aisling Bea, Simon Pegg, Ross Noble, David Mitchell, Jack Whitehall, Phil Jupitus, Eddie Izzard, Joe Lycett, Russell Brand and Sue Perkins. Those are just the ones I want to get to first.

The Stephen Fry episode is on YouTube. It's got some entertaining bits and some serious bits. Stephen made a bit of a splash when he revealed he tried killing himself the year before. Luckily he had been saved by his agent. Stephen suffers from depression and he's talked about the subject on some TV documentaries.

Herring isn't my favorite interviewer but he does an ok job. I don't know that I would care as much about his comedy. After all he's always going on about how he doesn't like Harry Potter. Here's a bit from his blog.

At my friend Simon's 45th birthday tonight, catching up with some pals, some of whom I haven't seen for years. As many of the people there were parents, the conversation had turned to children's books, which led to the relative merits of Philip Pulman's "His Dark Materials" and JK Rowling's Harry Potter series. I said that I had enjoyed the first Potter book and read a few of the others, but during book four I'd thought, "What the fuck am I doing? I am an adult," and given up on the overlong and underedited (almost beneltoned) series. I had, however, enjoyed Pulman's non-adult books enough to get through the whole thing and really enjoyed them (though now struggled to remember anything about what happened). My wife, a big Harry Potter fan, looked aghast and said, "I can't believe I married you."

Al Murray chipped in and said, "Join the club. Member 4789. We're printing up your membership card now." It was funny because it was true. Who knows what possessed the woman? She could have done a lot better, even if she is wrong about the relative merits of Pulman and Rowling (though history seems to have favoured the latter in terms or renown and movie success).

"Don't worry," I replied, "I was the founder member of that club." I don't know why she wants to be with me, but if someone throws a bag of diamonds in your lap and says, "That's yours now," you don't start to question what you've done to deserve it.

"Membership number zero, zero, zero, one," Al confirmed.

I can't believe she married him either. I think you're sadly missing something if you can't read a book because it's aimed at Children. Maybe because he went to Oxford and he's a twat. I'm only guessing. Still, I'll listen to his podcasts and occasionally wonder if he's somewhat mental.

Kingdom Series 3

Series 3 of Kingdom today. It's the last series, the show was too expensive to produce when ITV had budget cuts, so it got the chop. Like the other two series this one has 6 episodes. Each has two or three story threads running through it. The series starts with Peter burying his brother. Peter's sister has had her baby and there's some bits about finding out who the father is. Peter's solicitor trainee Lyle has been made a real lawyer and he finally gets his own office. And a girlfriend. He helps his mother keep her allotment, one her dead hubby had liked so much, and has a hard time dealing with his family. Peter gives him some advice. I enjoy the lightness of the show, there's just enough drama and humor in equal balance. It makes you think that all lawyers should be like Peter and Lyle. It's sad to think there are no more episodes but I have these bunch to watch again sometime.

Kingdom Series 2

I finished Kingdom Series 2 yesterday and really enjoyed that season all over again. Peter's brother returns and causes a lot of trouble. I wasn't much interested in that part of the story, Peter's brother is a big selfish ass who comes to a bad end due to his own doings. I felt bad for Peter and everyone else. The rest of the episodes are the usual bits and pieces of legal workings and family things that make up Peter's life. The cases are varied and there's plenty of jokes and silly bits. I like the cast and there are a few guest stars that were fun to see. I'm glad to see them again and I look forward to the 3rd and final series.

Kingdom Series 1

I finally ordered my own complete set of Kingdom and I just finished the first series today. I first watched the complete series back in 2013 and really enjoyed it. Rather than go through all the bother of writing the same fawning drivel over again I thought I would put a link here so you could read that post yourself. There's also a link to the whole series on YouTube on that post. Suffice to say it's a good comedy drama with Stephen Fry as a Solicitor in a country market town in Norfolk. The cases are mostly small things, and there's plenty of family drama with Peter, his clients, his relatives and his staff. It's a show I might not have noticed if it didn't have Stephen Fry. I liked it well enough to want to see it again so I went and ordered the DVDs now that they're a more reasonable price. You can see fairly good copies on YouTube.

Qi Series M

Qi Series M has been running for the last month and a half in the UK, The first 5 episodes, in both the regular and XL versions, have been posted to YouTube. You really only need to watch the XL version to get all the fun but I wind up watching both.

It's the last series with host Stephen Fry. Next year the delightful Sandi Toksvig will be taking his spot. I think she'll do well, she's smart, funny, and quick on her feet. She's pretty much a regular on the series, that's her in the lower right hand corned of the picture above. That's from the Maths episode.

The show's about the same as past episodes, plenty of interesting facts and oodles of gags to keep me entertained.

Jeeves And Wooster Series 4

The fourth and last series of Jeeves and Wooster is easily as good as all the rest. You can find out by clicking the link in the title to see them on Youtube. One of the things that I always appreciated about the series was that they keep it a high quality production right to the end. Of course I like all the jokes and there are plenty of them to keep people amused. Stephen Fry is Jeeves and Hugh Laurie is Bertie Wooster.

The show has some nice locations. One of them, Totleigh Towers, is played by Highclere Castle which you might have seen on Downton Abbey. I haven't seen the show, it just isn't of interest to me, but it's a nice building and it's been used in a good number of TV shows and films.

Return to New York May 16 1993

Bertie and Jeeves are relaxing in New York when Aunt Agatha drops off her nephews Claude and Eustace. She wants Bertie to make sure they get on a ship to South Africa where they have a job waiting. Of course the guys give Bertie and Jeeves the slip so they can stay and try wooing a night club singer who just isn't into them. They are a couple of idle creeps. Bertie has fallen for a young lady painter who just isn't the gal for him. There's a painting involved and Aunt Agatha is embarrassed at the end.

The Once and Future Ex  May 23 1993

Lady Florence, on the rebound, gloms onto Bertie and renews her engagement with him. Jeeves helps him get out of that one. 

Bridegroom Wanted!  May 30 1993

Bingo wants to marry a waitress so he gets Bertie to pretend to be Rosie M Banks again. It's all complicated when the real Miss Banks puts in an appearance. Bertie hires an actress to play his fiance but it turns out she wants the real thing. Jeeves and Bertie leg it back to England on a ship only to find the other cabins filled with all the people they are trying to escape. J and W jump into the ocean.

The Delayed Arrival  June 6 1993

Aunt Dahlis wants to sell her profitless women's magazine and she wants to sign up a big name author to make the contents a bit better. She needs some cash and she pawns her pearl necklace. Everything goes to hell until Jeeves uncorks the grey matter.

Trouble at Totleigh Towers  June 13 1993

Stiffy Bing wants Bertie to come to Totleigh Towers to steal an African statue. Gussie's fiance Madeline Bassett wants him to become a vegetarian and it forces him into the arms of hte cook. Madeline now has her eyes on Bertie as a beau. She's awful, Bertie needs a hand getting out of this predicament.

The Ties That Bind  June 20 1993

Safely thinking that Madeline is marrying Spode, Bertie comes to Totleigh Towers for the wedding. Doubly lucky Florence is attached to Bertie's pal Ginger. Of course that all goes south and soon Bertie is engaged to both women. Jeeves has his hands full trying to get back the Butlers' and Valets' book from the Ganymede Club.

Jeeves And Wooster Series 3

 

The guys return to the world of Jeeves and Wooster with 6 more episodes. Series 3 came out in 1992. I watched them on PBS when they aired there and loved them right from the start. I'd already been a fan of Wodehouse, at least since the early 80s. I'd become a Fry and Laurie fan from seeing them on Blackadder and A Bit Of Fry And Laurie. Both of those series are worth checking out. I still have the Blackadder series, in a remastered edition with new extras, to watch. It's on my To Watch Shelf and I hope to get to it soon.

Unlike the stories in the first two series most of these shows take place in the US. Bertie is well enough off to be able to travel to foreign lands. Often travel is used to encourage Jeeves to agitate the old grey matter and think up a solution to the problem at hand. PG Wodehouse was a regular visitor to New York back at the turn of the 20th century. I read in one of his autobiographies that it was £10 a trip on a ship. Wodehouse actually settled in New York after WW2 and never returned to England. He died in 1975 at the age of 93.

I enjoyed all of these stories for the umpteenth time and think I still will in the future. It's been long enough since I've seen them that many story details are forgotten. The story details are plentiful, yet the plot is simple. There isn't much downtime in one of these stories, people are constantly interacting, pushing the plot forward, trying to manipulate one another to do their bidding, hustling and bustling, in and out of their rooms. There are plenty of jokes.

Someone described Wodehouse's stories as musical comedy plays without the songs and that's better than anything I can say. Unlike a stage bound play the productions have plenty of nice locations. I always enjoy looking at the cottages and stately manors that pop up on the show. They spent the money to make the sets look equally good, then people them with good actors in nice costumes. All around a treat.

Bertie Sets Sail  March 29 1992

Aunt Agatha has a desire to marry Bertie off to Honoria Glossop so Bertie and Jeeves hie off to New York. After settling into a nice apartment they get stuck with Lady Malvern's son, Wilmot. Bertie is told to perfect her delicate boy but Wilmot spends his evenings drinking at the local nightclubs. Bertie's pal Tuppy gets in trouble when he buys 48 cars and hasn't the money to pay for them. There's a woman involved. Jeeves to the rescue.

The Full House  April 5 1992

Another of Bertie's pals, Rocky, gets in a jam and Jeeves has to go nightclubbing in his place. Another pal, Bicky, has his allowance cut off when he is found out not to be doing what he was supposed to. A lot of these idle rich characters sure seem to have little sense. Good thing they have Jeeves for a big of a hand in the thinking department.

Introduction on Broadway  April 12 1992

Aunt Agatha sends Cyril to stay with Bertie. She wants Bertie to keep him away from the theater but that's sure to fail. When she goes to see the play Cyril is in Jeeves has to figure something out to save the day.

Right Ho, Jeeves  April 19 1992

Aunt Agatha has a new gal for Bertie. To escape the city he pretends to be Gussie and takes his place at Deverill Hall. Gussie gets out of jail and pretends to be Bertie. Of course they aren't clever enough to keep that up.

Hot Off the Press  April 26 1992

Sir Watkyn Bassett is writing his memoirs and there are those that don't want the book published. Bertie has gotten engaged and his lady wants him to steal and destroy the book. Constable Oates arrests Stiffy's dog. It's a fair cop.

Comrade Bingo  May 3 1992

Bingo has joins the Red Dawn because he's in love with Charlotte the daughter of one of the comrades. He goes to Communist rallies in a false beard so his rich father won't know it's him. Bingo is another one that can't think too well and that disguise is sure to fail at just the right time. Especially if it all gets a bit of a push from Jeeves. Spode's fascists are also on hand.

Jeeves And Wooster Series 2

 

I'm biffing through the episodes like there's no tomorrow. Maybe there isn't but right now I'm having a bit of a laugh. The nice thing about series 2 is the 20% increase in giggles. There's an addition episode this season bringing the total for the 2nd series to 6. Each of the 2 following seasons will also have 6 episodes bringing the total for the complete series to an interesting 23.

Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie play Jeeves and Bertie Wooster. Much of the same cast comes back but occasional parts are being played by different actors. Most of them are people I'm not that familiar with but Martin Clunes puts in an appearance as Barmy.

Jeeves Saves the Cow-Creamer  14 April 1991

Bertie's Aunt Dahlia wants him to steal a silver cow creamer.

A Plan for Gussie  21 April 1991

Gussie has a notebook which causes a lot of trouble. Someone nearly marries the wrong person. Someone hides Constable Oats police helmet in Bertie's room and he gets in trouble.

Pearls Mean Tears  28 April 1991

Aunt Agatha tells Bertie to join her by the sea. She has a possible mate for poor Bertie. There are some con men about and someone has some pearls.

Jeeves in the Country  5 May 1991

Bertie is trying to learn the trombone and it causes Jeeves to give notice. He's replaced by Brinkley who follows Bertie to a country cottage. Bertie's pal Chuffy want to marry an American girl and he hires Jeeves as his valet.

Kidnapped!  12 May 1991

There's plenty of white guys in black face in this one. People used to put on minstral shows in England in the 1920's. It's used here for a comic plot device.

Jeeves The Matchmaker  19 May 1991

Bertie thinks he might like to have a child. Jeeves puts that nonsense right out of his head with a bit of scare tactics. Some people just aren't cut out to have children, prefering them in small doses in places you can leave.

Jeeves And Wooster Series 1

 

The first series of Jeeves and Wooster aired on ITV in 1990. There were 5 episodes with Stephen Fry as the valet Jeeves and Hugh Laurie as the delightfully woolly Bertie Wooster. They did three more series with 6 episodes in each one. Over the years I've watched the whole series several times. First I taped it off of TV then I bought the complete series DVD collection when it came out in 2002. I got them as soon as I could and have watched them 3 times already.

Clive Exton created the series and wrote all the scripts. He adapted his episodes from the PG Wodehouse stories. Some of the episodes have material from multiple stories. The adaptations make me feel it's Wodehouse and I've seen plenty of other adapted Wodehouse that just didn't hit the nail on the proverbial head.

Wodehouse started writing the Jeeves and Wooster stories in 1917 and the last one came out in 1966. Wodehouse wrote for a long time and he wrote a good lot. There are 10 books in J&W series and a hundred more with oodles of other characters.  Wodehouse wrote for the theater off and on in his career and he worked in Hollywood occasionally. The stage figures into some of his stories and show people pop up now and again. 

You can see the series on YouTube if you want to give it a try for no cost. I've added a link to each title. You can still find the A&E DVDs on Amazon. It's cheaper to buy the separate series DVDs instead of the complete boxed set. There is a new Acorn edition coming out on the November 25 2014 that would be the low cost option. It's a series well worth seeing and a great edition to the DVD collection.

Jeeves Takes Charge  April 22 1990

Jeeves shows up on Bertie's doorstep for the first time. He moves in quite simply. Bertie's aunt Agatha wants Bertie to marry a perfectly horrid woman and Jeeves has to strain the old grey matter to get him out of that pickle.

Tuppy and the Terrier  April 29 1990

In this episode Bertie has a desire to marry a young woman who just isn't the right girl for him. Again Jeeves helps keep him single.

The Purity of the Turf  May 6 1990

Aunt Agatha wants Bertie to stop his uncle from marrying a woman beneath his station. Agatha is right horrible old cow who has a thing about class. The rich and pompous don't come off to well in Wodehouse's world.

The Hunger Strike  May 13 1990

Aunt Dahlia wants Bertie to hand out the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar School and he tries to skive out of that. His pal Gussie Fink-Nottle has woman problems and he asks Jeeves for some help. There are newts involved. Bertie's assistance in the romantic lives of his friends and family leads to trouble.

Brinkley Manor  May 20 1990

Jeeves tries to talk Aunt Dahlia's chef Anatole into returning. You can guess who's fault it was that he left in the previous episode. A fire alarm, pulled in the middle of the night, helps get things back on track.

Qi - Series L

  

The new series of Qi is brought to you by the letter L. Stephen Fry hosts this popular British panel show on the BBC. Each season of the series starts with a letter and the first one was A. This is L. Each week a new group of panelists tries to guess the answer to Stephen's questions. Alan Davis is the regular panelist. He's been in all but one episode. He doesn't win too often but he cracks a lot of jokes. The first episode is L'animals and the guest are Sarah Millican, Ross Noble and Colin Lane. All three are comedians, Colin from Australia, Sarah and Ross from the north eastern part of England. There are plenty of jokes, some rude words, and you learn something. There's two uses of LEGO on the show. One use is really simple and other use is very complicated. Bricks were used to demo the walking habits of caterpillars and the Mindstorms theme was used to create a fish car. It kind of elegantly captures the potential of that toy. There are two other episodes posted to YouTube. Some of them are in the longer and shorter versions of the show. One runs about 28 minutes and the other 45 minutes.