Jeeves and Wooster: Return to New York

Jeeves and Wooster: Return to New York
ITV
16 May 1993
Historical Comedy
DVD
B+

This is probably the best episode of the final series, and indeed one of the very best of the programme as a whole.  It's well cast, directed, and costumed, and there are some lovely musical moments.  These range from a quartet singing a song about soup to a torch singer doing solos and, towards the end, a duet with Bertie, as Jeeves for once contributes unreluctantly.  This episode smoothly combines three short stories, one of them with Tuppy replacing one-timer Freddie.  In a bit of continuity, Aunt Agatha (now played by the grand Elizabeth Spriggs) still co-owns the Gregson-Prysock Gallery in New York, so Bertie hopes she'll take to his latest crush, an artist named Gwladys.  Meanwhile, Agatha wants him to see that his troublesome twin cousins get on the boat to South Africa.  Too many great moments to name them all, so I'll just quote this line, re the thread that only exists onscreen, not in print, about Tuppy trying to sell his nanny's cock-a-leekie recipe, "But does the populace at large want to be transported back to your childhood, Tuppy?"

Joseph Mydell plays the recast Coneybear, the elevator man, and would return twice more.