The title has lengthened since this production was first announced, to emphasise the fact that this is the first non-musical stage adaptation of one of P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves novels to appear in the West End. On the face of it, it may seem an odd match to couple a tale by Wodehouse, where the comedy depends at least as much upon the tone and phrasing of the narrative as upon the incidents, with director Sean Foley. I have praised Foley before as being probably Britain’s greatest current physical comedy director; others may show an equal fecundity of ideas, but Foley alone also elicits the vital crispness and precision in those ideas’ execution. However, when tackling more diverse comic work, he has sometimes come sadly unstuck, as with his West End production of Joe Orton’s What The Butler Saw some 18 months ago.
    
Well, Perfect Nonsense is the funniest Foley work I have seen since the West End zenith of his duo The Right Size, The Play What I Wrote, more than a decade ago. Adapters Robert and David Goodale have expanded their stage version of Wodehouse’s The Code Of The Woosters (1938: the one about gormless Gussie Fink-Nottle’s amorous upsets and the theft of a silver cow-creamer during a country-house weekend) from the solo version performed by Robert on the Edinburgh Fringe in the ’90s to a three-hander: narrator and amiable dimwit Bertie Wooster, his unflappable gentleman’s personal gentleman Jeeves, and his aunt’s butler just to take on a few extra roles.
    
Even with three performers there is still ample scope for humour concerning the staging itself, from Jeeves gradually building the set to the fearsome figure of would-be fascist leader Spode requiring the more compact Mark Hadfield to be trundled around on an occasional table. Hadfield, long a brilliant comic actor, is the production’s ace in the hole, whether playing demagogue, dodderer or dowager aunt. Matthew Macfadyen is a little strident as the ever-smooth Jeeves, but throws himself with verve and aplomb into the proceedings, at one point donning a lampshade as impromptu drag. Stephen Mangan goofs for all he’s worth as Bertie, chatting to the audience in between his dramatic account of how his valet saved the day. All in all, this is a too-rare 22-carat demonstration of silliness as one of the great English virtues.

Written for the Financial Times.