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BY JEEVES
A Musical by Andrew LLoyd Webber and Alan Ayckbourn
Based on characters created by P. G. Wodehouse

This "new" musical opened on the last Sunday in October in the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway, showing that in New York things are gradually returning to normal. I say "new" musical, when in fact it is a second dip in the bran tub, as the original version called plain "Jeeves", was not a success when produced in London in the seventies.
It shows an England that seems to be fixed in time in the minds of most Americans, where cucumber sandwiches, tea on the lawn, eccentric polo playing members of the autocracy and butlers with all the brains seem to be the norm. Fostered as it all was by the humourous Wodehousian prose, featuring that inept, upper-crust Bertie Wooster and his resourceful Jeeves.
There is a clever plot as convoluted as any of Ayckbourn's successful comedies, being in fact, a musical within a musical.
Bertie has been invited to play his banjo at a church fund-raiser, but just before the concert is to begin, it's discovered the instrument has been stolen. To stall for time until a new one can be obtained, Bertie must pacify the crowd, meaning the audience at the Helen Hayes.
Out of his desperation -- and Jeeves' inspiration -- comes a cheerfully convoluted tale of mistaken identity, romance thwarted and the triumph of true love. Ayckbourn, who also directed, parades an assortment of Wodehouse oddballs across the stage, each with a typically apt name, such as Gussie Fink-Nottle, Harold "Stinker" Pinker, Stiffy Byng and Honoria Glossop.
Part of the fun in "By Jeeves" is the makeshift nature of Bertie's presentation. Boxes are turned into an open-air roadster; a large yellow ball, hoisted on a rope by a cast member, becomes the moon, and stalks of sunflowers are passed out to theatergoers in the front row to add atmosphere to a particularly bucolic love scene. It all builds up to a boisterous finale with the entire cast dressed as characters from "The Wizard of Oz."
Lloyd Webber's music, played by a tiny orchestra perched above the stage, has a tinkling giddy 1920s style that suits the convoluted story. One ballad, "Half a Moment," rescued from the original version that flopped in London in 1975, is Lloyd Webber at his most appealing and Alan Ayckbourn's lyrics are intelligent and witty, a quality not always evident in a Lloyd Webber score.
John Scherer, who portrays Bertie, has a round, wide-eyed face, perfect for projecting the genial bewilderment that seems to accompany Bertie as he muddles through life. Moreover, he is a song-and-dance man, so that when a banjo finally does arrive, Bertie gives a dazzling, though brief version of his concert.
Martin Jarvis follows the long established dry look and makes a splendid Jeeves, oozing with deadpan efficiency, adept but never condescending to Bertie's dither. It's the relationship between Bertie and Jeeves that holds everything together, and the two performers carry off this master-servant comradeship with ease.
Ayckbourn skillfully introduces several typical Wodehouse females. There's the horsey and hardy Honoria (an enthusiastic Donna Lynne Champlin); Madeline, the breathless blonde with a baby-doll voice (Becky Watson) and the supremely self-confident Stiffy (Emily Loesser).
Except for Jeeves, the men are all bumblers supreme, whether American jelly magnate Cyrus Budge III (Steve Wilson) or a trio of lovelorn twits (James Kall, Don Stephenson and Ian Knauer).
Compared to some of Lloyd Webber's previous extravanganzas, this is a modest little offering, and it is interesting to know he can also think small. Small can be addictive when it is accompanied by melody, wit and charm, and these are all present in "By Jeeves." This musical will have much appeal to musical societies, as and when it become available to amateurs

This article has been based on numbers of reviews, gleaned from the Internet, and I am indebted to AP for the photo of the principals.

ALAN AYCKBOURN had this to say about the original JEEVES musical:

There was a mooted plot afoot that it would be nice to have P G Wodehouse's approval of the show. Not a plot by Andrew and me, I hasten to add, but a plot by some managerial whizz-kids.
Plum lived at that time out on Long Island. He didn't have a piano, but there was a convenient young millionaire composer within a stone's throw who did. So the idea was that we'd go over to Plum's house, pick him and his wife, Ethel, up in a sort of cortege of cars and go on to this composer's house.
So we arrived, and we drive through Long Island, which is very like Surrey - it gets more and more like Surrey the further you go - and the first indication we were in Wodehouse-land was that we passed a sign saying: 'The Bide-A-Wee Cats and Dogs Home', which indeed was run by Ethel. And Ethel was, as we arrived, just finishing boiling fifteen chickens for the stray cats and dogs.
Plum was over ninety and Ethel was probably around seventy; so she was quite a stripling. He was very, very deaf, and he wore a deaf aid; but one suuspected immediately that, like some of his characters, he wore it as a defence. He seemed to be able to hear everyone except Ethel quite well. Ethel would scream at him and he wouldn't take any notice; but you could say, "It's a lovely morning." "Yes", he'd say.
Anyway, he came shuffling out. He was working on his new novel. He smiled and nodded and shook hands with us and smiled. We all got into the car and started to drive. Ethel said, "Be careful over the bumps. He doesn't like bumps." So we drove quite slowly and this house turned out to be quite a long way away.
Plum was muttering away in the front about how lovely it was to be in the open air, and said, "Jolly good, this, jolly nice. I'd like to meet the chap who wrote the words in this. That would have been very nice." "HE'S SITTING BEHIND YOU, PLUM! YOU'VE JUST MET HIM! HE'S SITTING BEHIND YOU!" screamed Ethel. He said: "Oh, he's sitting behind me? Oh, that's nice. Didn't know you'd written the words."
Well we got there and had our photographs taken outside. We went in and Andrew sat down to play the score. We sat Plum by the piano, and I sat next to him to hand him the sheets of lyrics, because it was quite apparent he wasn't going to hear very much. And Andrew - I remember it very clearly - put the music up, and then he turned round and went 'Aaaah!' He looked sort of desperate. I turned round and there were about sixty people in the room. They'd all sort of filtered in - casuals from the composer's relations and odd, very bearded, woolly Americans with afro haircuts who were all sitting crosslegged.
Suddenly Andrew was playing a concert performance and P G Wodehouse was the last of the people to play to. The whole of the newer wave, modern American composers were there. The man who owned the place, turned out to be the foremost electronic composer. So Andrew played through the score and sang it quite well, even if he kept missing my words because he was trying to play it right. And Plum was nodding and saying, "Jolly nice, jolly nice."
At the end of the music, our hostess had positively excelled herself. She'd laid on the full English tea: cucumber sandwiches, tomato sandwiches, pots of tea, scones, a full table. And Plum said, "Ah, tea!" and absolutely beamed. Then Ethel seized him by the arm and said: "No! Time for home, Plum!" and whisked him away. That's the last we ever saw of him.

From Ian Watson's book, 'Conversations with Ayckbourn', published by Macdonald.