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by Robert Goodale & David Goodale, directed by Brendan McMurtry-Howlett

Shaw Festival, Court House Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake

May 24–October 10, 2026

Bertie: “I can’t do with any more education. I was full up years ago”

The Shaw Festival is presenting the Canadian premiere of Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense. The play is stage adaptation from 2013 by brothers Robert and David Goodale of The Code of the Woosters, a 1938 novel by P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975). Wodehouse (pronounced “woodhouse”) is often regarded as the greatest comic novelist in the English language, and The Code of the Woosters is often considered the finest of his 71 novels. In 2015 the BBC listed it as one of the 100 Greatest British Novels.

The Code of the Woosters features two of Wodehouse’s best-known creations — Bertie Wooster, a confirmed bachelor who is always getting into scrapes, and Jeeves, his loyal, omniscient manservant, who is always getting Bertie out of them. People who have never read the books will likely know of the characters from the ITV series Jeeves & Wooster (1990-93) that starred Hugh Laurie as Bertie and Stephen Fry as Jeeves.

The Goodales’ Jeeves & Wooster begins with the premise that had been at his club, The Drones, relating the events of a story after which one of its members suggested he should turn it into a play. What we see is the play that Bertie, who never acted before, has created with the help of Jeeves and his Aunt Dahlia’s butler, Seppings. As Bertie says, “I’ve been to the theatre a couple of times … and have often thought: Well, how hard can that be?”

The plot is almost too convoluted to summarize. In short, Bertie’s Aunt Dahlia wants Woster to steal a silver cow creamer that her husband covets for his silver collection but which Sir Watkyn Bassett has brought for his own collection. If Bertie does not do this, she will bar him from the fabulous dinners created by her celebrated chef Anatole.

Bertie has already been invited to Totleigh Towers, home of magistrate Sir Watkyn Bassett by Sir Watkyn’s daughter Madeline, who is having trouble with her fiancé and old friend of Woοster’s, newt-fancier Gussie Fink-Nottle. Meanwhile, Sir Watkyn’s ward, Stiffy Byng, wants Bertie to steal the same cow creamer in order to be caught by her would-be fiancé Rev. Harold Pinker. Sir Watkyn wants Stiffy to marry the fascist leader Roderick Spode, but Stiffy thinks that if Pinker prevents Bertie from stealing the creamer, then Sir Watkyn will look more kindly on Pinker as her intended. Complications ensue.

What transpires is a play, obviously influenced by Patrick Barlow’s The 39 Steps (2005). In Barlow’s play one actor plays the hero Richard Hannay while three other actors play more than 150 roles in recreating Hitchcock’s 1935 film The 39 Steps. Here the doubling is not so extreme. One actor plays the hero Bertie Wooster while the actor playing Jeeves playsthree other characters and the actor playing Seppings plays five other characters. Both actors take turns playing Stiffy’s dog Bartholemew.

Those who know the novels will also know that stage and screen adaptions of P.G. Wodehouse to are never able to capture what it is that makes the author so famous. Wodehouse’s great appeal lies not in his Byzantine plots, clever as they may be, but in his continuously inventive use of language. In The Code of the Woosters, Bertie says of Jeeves, “I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled”. Later on, he says of Spode, “His manner was curt. One sensed the absence of the bonhomous note”. Though the Goodale brothers do quote short passages from Wodehouse throughout the play, the dialogue is mostly invented and not a match for the real Wodehouse.

Compressing Wodehouse’s labyrinthine plot into only 140 minutes means that what is already complex becomes downright confusing. Even though I have read The Code of the Woosters and seen the ITV adaptation of it, I still had trouble knowing who Stiffy Byng is, why she is at Totleigh Towers and why her having a Gussie Fink-Nottle’s notebook is important. The narrated trying up of loose ends for the finale is so rapid that I had no clear idea of how a happy conclusion was reached.

Worse, the Goodale brothers commit a major error in making the play more about their concept than about anything in Wodehouse. They initially present the action as Bertie attempting to put on stage the events he experienced. He was planning to use Seppings, said to have a acting background, but then realizes he needs Jeeves to pitch in as an actor. Anyone who knows the imperious, highly proper nature of Jeeves would know how unlikely it is that Jeeves would ever participate.

The Goodale brothers begin simply with Jeeves bringing on scenery borrowed from a local theatrical company because he knew it would be needed. The scenery happens to be the same scenery that Sim Suzer designed for Sleuth, also playing at the Court House Theatre. Unfortunately, the Goodales soon ditch the aesthetic of making do with whatever’s available. Roderick Spode, who, contrary to the novel, grows bigger with every appearance, no longer stands on a stool to be taller but appears in his own custom-made ambulatory machine.

The scenery of Act 2 is no longer found scenery but purpose-built. When Jeeves imitates Madeline Bassett, he makes do with a pair of curtains for a costume. When he later plays Stiffy Byng, he has a custom-made costume. Later for a scene where he plays two characters at once, he has a specialized half-and-half costume. This inconsistent approach might be tolerable except that director Brendan McMurtry-Howlett has the actors point out the clever features of the scenery. Having actors point out what is funny in a comedy invariably makes it less funny.

The most enjoyable aspect of the play is the performances of the actors. Jeff Irving in one of his rare non-singing-and-dancing performances proves that he is a fine comic actor. He plays Bertie as both delightfully dim-witted and thoroughly engaging. Given Irving’s other talents it’s a pity director McMurtry-Howlett could not have slipped some singing into the show since in the books Bertie is always warbling some tawdry music hall song much to Jeeves’s displeasure.

Damien Atkins and Travis Seetoo both play characters who take on roles in Bertie’s play. There is the potential for a real test of ability in demonstrating how the personality of a character informs the way he plays his various roles. But McMurtry-Howlett does not seem interested in having Atkins or Seetoo explore this possibility.

Atkins is especially amusing as the hopeless romantic, sylph-like Madeline Bassett, who thinks that Middle Ages was the height of romance. Atkins portrays Gussie Fink-Nottle as the ultimate self-involved nerd. His stern Stiffy Byng is a total contrast to his Madeline Bassett, while does go rather over the top as the perpetually irascible Sir Watkyn Bassett.

Travis Seetoo is adept at all of many roles. He is particularly funny as Bertie’s Aunt Dahlia which he seems to have modelled after Prunella Scales in Fawlty Towers. His Butterfield is amusingly over-deferential and his Constable Oates so different from these you might think he was played by a fourth actor. His Roderick Spode would be much funnier if he could be rid of the weird ambulatory device he’s made to use. His best performance, however, is as the live foley artist for Bertie and Jeeves’s car ride to Totleigh Towers where he provides a wide range of sounds and clever special effects including portraying a level crossing signal. It’s too bad that after this the show reverts to prerecorded sound effects.

Those unfamiliar with Wodehouse may simply enjoy the controlled mayhem on stage. Some of those who are familiar with Wodehouse may enjoy seeing favourite characters alive on stage. Others, however, will realize how much of what makes Wodehouse great is missing from the show and diluted by the stage antics of the Goodales’ concept.

In 1967, concerning the adaption of his works to stage or screen, Wodehouse himself wrote, “In recent years I have had lucrative offers for his services from theatrical managers, motion-picture magnates... But, tempting though the terms were, it only needed Jeeves’ deprecating cough and his murmured ‘I would scarcely advocate it, sir’, to put the jack under my better nature. Jeeves knows his place, and it is between the covers of a book”.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Travis Seetoo as Seppings, Jeff Irving as Bertie Wooster and Damien Atkins as Jeeves; Travis Seetoo as Seppings playing Roderick Spode, Damien Atkins as Jeeves playing Sir Watkyn Bassett and Jeff Irving as Berrtie Wooster; Damien Atkins as Jeeves playing Gussie Fink-Nottle, Jeff Irving as Bertie Wooster and Travis Seetoo as Seppings playing Aunt Dahlia; Jeff Irving as Bertie Wooster, Damien Atkins as Jeeves and Travis Seetoo as Seppings playing a level crossing barrier. © 2026 Michael Cooper.

For tickets visit: www.shawfest.com.