Jeeves and Wooster: Kidnapped

Jeeves and Wooster: Kidnapped
ITV
12 May 1991
Historical Comedy
DVD
C

It would be easy to blame all the problems with this episode on the fact that it's from the more problematic half of the novel Thank You, Jeeves.  However, the Exton script actually puts several characters into blackface, not just Bertie and Sir Roderick Glossop (Roger Brierly for the last time), but the Drones Club and Stoker!  Not only that, but in the book, Sir Roderick has been a widower for two years and his motivation for "blacking up" is to please Chuffy's sister Myrtle, whom he's engaged to, while here Lady Glossop (Jane Downs, also for the last time) is alive and well.  Furthermore, the local villagers are shown to be ignorant and superstitious, so them being scared of men in blackface is not only racist but classist.

It's a pity because there's potential for good farce here, especially early on, when Bertie and Pauline stay in the same inn, and she's upset that Chuffy isn't jealous when he finds out, while Stoker is furious, especially since Bertie was previously engaged to Honoria Glossop.  However, it turns out that the mysterious stranger stalking Pauline is Chuffy, and this is handled badly as well.  And I don't bring these things up as some sort of modern (2017 or 1991) political correctness, although that is a concern.  I mostly don't think it's good plotting.  At least Bertie sings again, "Lady of Spain."

Not counting the people we saw in the previous episode, Richard Dixon is back as Oofy.  And Martin Clunes and Michael Ripper make their last appearances as respectively Barmy and the Drones Porter.