Wodehouse Saved My Life

[princesshannah4.livejournal.com]

So I was just browsing the posts with "articles" tags and was shocked to find this article to be not present.

Forgive me if this has been posted before, but it's quite a remarkable piece.

This is the ultimate justification for Hugh Laurie playing Bertie (besides the obvious fact that he is a straight-up genius)

Comments

[tetsubinatu.livejournal.com]

*blinks helplessly*

*opens mouth and closes it again*

*remains speechless in the face of such magnificence*

[princesshannah4.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I had a similar reaction when I found this.

[ink-n-imp.livejournal.com]

*Happy sigh*

It's as if all of creation existed just so Plum would write his J&W, and Fry and Laurie would play them.

[princesshannah4.livejournal.com]

I know, right?

[storyfan.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this.

[princesshannah4.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.

[random-nexus.livejournal.com]

My tongue dried out my jaw was hanging in an open-mouthed grin so long.
Bless yer buttons for linking this article!
I don't think the Fates could have intervened in the situation to make Hugh & Stephen play our boys any more obviously without it creating a crack in the reality matrix.

By that I mean - wow, awesome. And thank you SO much for sharing that.

Crikey!

[princesshannah4.livejournal.com]

^_______^

[closetofheroes.livejournal.com]

It's astonishing how like Bertie he is. Self-deprecating and all the rest of it. And both went to Eton, of course. I'm convinced he was born to play that role. And shoot me for saying it if you must, but to see him playing House pains me.

Stephen Fry also wrote something about Wodehouse - I seem to remember that it was more intellectual and less personal. I'll have to hunt about for it now...

[princesshannah4.livejournal.com]

I thought that Hugh went to Cambridge and Bertie went to Oxford. I dunno, I'm not sure how British colleges and universities work.

Personally, seeing him as House doesn't pain me because I spend so much time not consciously noticing that it's actually him. While I was certainly aware of him as House before Bertie (and George), I actually watched his British stuff first. So I've actually lost a chunk of name/face association with him and House, except of course when he's not in-character.

[closetofheroes.livejournal.com]

That's true, but they did both go to Eton. That's rather a big coincidence to me - I mean, I've known a couple of people who've got to Cambridge, but Eton? Only the super-posh go there - Prince William, and the like. (If someone tells me 'oi! I went to Eton and I'm not super-posh!' - well, compared with me, you are.) Eton is a school, btw, not a university, and has nothing directly to do with Oxford or Cambridge.

Their universities is a sort of coincidence, in a way, because in England Oxford and Cambridge are virtually synonymous to those who never went there. They are even referred to as 'Oxbridge'.

I saw this little interview with H. Laurie when someone pointed out the parallel:

INTERVIEWER: You're a bit of a Bertie Wooster yourself, I mean, Eton and Cambridge and all that. Bit posh, isn't it?

LAURIE: Well, it's- erm... yes, I suppose so, erm... I am. I am Bertie Wooster, that's absolutely right. It's a sort of - yes, Jeeves and Wooster is a sort of fly-on-the-wall documentary, really, as much as a drama series... and that is exactly - that is the life I lead. And it's just a question of where you put the camera in the room.

I thought that was quite funny.

I do wish they had both gone to Cambridge, though, just to make the parallel complete! It would be nice be able to say that Bertie Wooster cheered for the same side that Hugh Laurie rowed on in the Oxford/Cambridge boat-race. Bertie didn't much like the idea of rowing himself, calling it a "deuce of a sweat", but as we all know, he entered whole-heartedly into the festivities of the event. I suppose that's one big difference between Hugh Laurie and Bertie Wooster - Bertie would never let himself in for anything as strenuous as that.

[mxdp.livejournal.com]

I had read this before but... I mean... oh, Hugh ♥

[princesshannah4.livejournal.com]

Really? How'd you find it? (I found it through Wikipedia a few months ago)

[mxdp.livejournal.com]

In a Wodehouse book (that I was stupid enough not to buy) and on the same site, actually... ^^ But thanks for posting it... completely forgot about it all!

[prologi.livejournal.com]

This is a thing of beauty. <3

(Also: Naturally, one hopes there were compensations in watching Wodehouse on the screen - pleasant scenery, amusing clothes, a particular actor's eyebrows - but it can never replicate the experience of reading him. Hee. :D )

[princesshannah4.livejournal.com]

He's got a point ^^;

[closetofheroes.livejournal.com]

Did he mean his own eyebrows, do you think, or Stephen Fry's?

What did Stephen Fry say about Hugh's eyes? Something very flattering, but damn it, I can't remember.

[alemyrddin.livejournal.com]

that man is so brilliant, and adorable. Thanks for posting this. :)

[princesshannah4.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. And I love your icon.

[umpteenth-gail.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed both articles Hugh and Stephen wrote about PG's stories affecting their young lives. When I first fell in love with our boys in a new way by discovering Jooster, thanks to this community, I looked up Hugh as I had never heard of him and Stephen, finding out what an extraordinary amount I never suspected about him, and that's how I found the articles.

Their take on Jeeves and Wooster, the stories in general and how they were influenced by them was rather touching. Their story of how they were approached to do the job was hilarious. Comedians both. :)

Having said that, I did enjoy Stephen's remarks, but he was off the mark when he said PG was famous for all his stories. It is Jeeves for whom the writer is renowned. Without him, he would have been just another comic writer, possibly still well-known or perhaps forgotten. The character of Jeeves just refuses to be forgotten, and even popped up in a freeware computer game I am playing now. :) Not the original Jeeves of course, a modest rip-off of him, a homage, really.

Even my mother has heard of Jeeves, just to illustrate the point. :)

Ever since I learned about the well-known cricketer Percy Jeeves, for whom the character Jeeves was named, I am sad to think of his fate, one of so many cut down in that first of two senseless wars. I wish he could have known how his name was immortalised. I suppose the recent ANZAC Day is still a little on my mind.