31 Plays in 31 Days, #5 - "Hangover Cure"

Doing something a little different today! Whether as a genuine creative impulse or an expression of my tendency towards productive procrastination, I’ve been turning over an idea for a reimagining of a Jeeves and Wooster television show. I love the original ITV version with Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, as it represents the actual stories so truly and beautifully. But I’d love to do a reinterpretation of it, with a slightly blacker comedic style.

The crux of my reinterpretation would be that Jeeves’s hypercompetence comes from time spent as a black ops agent in WWI, and is now trying to adapt to civilian life where you can’t just knife your way out of all your problems. Bertie would be the lovely, charming idiot, whose head is easily turned by hot girls and flashy living, who in many ways Jeeves finds frustrating, but slowly wins him over with his generosity of spirit and selflessness when helping friends. I’d want to shift the tone just a little away from the total innocence of the original and allow for slightly darker or edgier references to violence or sex. I think it could be a ton of fun.

So today’s scene is taken from the pilot for this I’ve been noodling on, Jeeves Takes Charge, loosely based on the first Wodehouse short story where Jeeves first comes to work for Bertie. I’ve changed the context a little, where instead of actually being sent by an agency, a freshly discharged Jeeves comes upon Bertie being mugged by toughs as he stumbles home, extremely drunk, in the early hours of the morning. Jeeves reluctantly saves him and drags his passed-out ass home.

( Day #5 - Hangover Cure )