Blandings

More fun for the actors, one suspects, than the audience, this is yet another dramatisation of the comic works of P J Woodhouse. Unquestionably however, Woodhouse is more enjoyable on the printed page than on the small screen, a viewpoint vindicated here. The adaptor of the work just can't resist inserting some modern piece of vulgarity into the dialogue which is wholly at odds with the innocence and playfulness of the source material. The acting is inconsistent, Jennifer Saunders in particular seems badly miscast and over made-up as the tyrannical sister while Timothy Spall fails to convince he's of titled stock at all and thus misses out on the buffoonery of his Lordship's character. Of the supporting characters, actors like Mark Williams and David Walliams are just too familiar to engage, never mind surprise, in their characterisations. The humour seems to come through despite instead of because of the playing and one can't help but think this series just looks like an excuse for established actors to camp or ham (or both) it up, in funny period clothes and frightfully put-on upper-class accents.