Blandings

Nigel Farndale on the week's television: Blandings

With Spall on such fine form, the rest of the cast could afford to give less, Jack Farthing being a case in point. His portrayal of the simple-minded Hon Freddie Threepwood was too caricatured. But for now we should perhaps give him and the others the benefit of the doubt and conclude that Blandings is not only delightful escapism, but also something you can safely watch with your children.

With a cast including Timothy Spall, Jennifer Saunders and Robert Bathhurst, BBC1's new Sunday-night PG Wodehouse adaptation Blandings could not have failed to have its moments. Sadly, for some reason, I could not shake the suspicion that it was probably a lot more fun to make than it was to watch.

Top marks to Spall though. His channelling of Boris Johnson for his portrayal of Lord Emsworth was worth the entrance fee alone.

Blandings is based in part on the rather funny PG Wodehouse novels and stars Jennifer Saunders, Mark Williams and Timothy Spall. Now, the books themselves aren't exactly hard-hitting bits of realism, but there's nothing worse than a comedy in which everyone involved (with the exception of the above-mentioned) is grinning and acting like idiots because they know the whole thing is silly. So I gave up after 10 minutes. Absolutely horrendous and twee.

Blandings first episode threw up nothing more distressing than the sight of Lord Emsworth's pig man dancing on a pub table in a state of drunken dishevelment. His lordship's hog, the Empress, responded to her beloved handler's subsequent incarceration by going on hunger strike, seriously jeopardising her chances in the forthcoming fattest pig competition at the county fair.

And the silliness didn't stop there, with love-struck nieces, unwelcome suitors, silly-arse sons, mendacious magistrates, fierce aunts and resourceful butlers all thrown into the mix.

Timothy Spall stars as the blustering Lord Emsworth, with Jennifer Saunders as his indomitable sister Connie, and Jack Farthing - in scene-stealing form - as his son and heir Freddie.

Personally, I don't think Wodehouse transfers to the screen - his genius for imagery and turn of phrase inevitably gets left on the page - but Blandings' combination of period detail, star turns and amiable imbecility filled half an hour entertainingly enough for me. This view wasn't unanimously held in my household, however, where Wodehouse's inter-war world of opulence and privilege proved totally alien, largely incomprehensible and relentlessly unfunny to my ten year-old daughter.

Fast, silly and lighter than a hummingbird's feather, this all-star PG Wodehouse adaptation is a dose of unashamed fun. Timothy Spall might perhaps be channelling Boris Johnson in his turn as Lord Emsworth, the mumbling patriarch of a mad family who's forever failing to avoid the wrath of Jennifer Saunders. Most of the magic of Wodehouse's writing nearly always gets lost of the way to the screen, but if even a portion of it sticks you've got an enjoyable, cartoonish caper. That's the case here.

The last time PG Wodehouse was a hit on the small screen was a good couple of decades back when Fry and Laurie slipped into the apparel of Jeeves and Wooster. Bally good fun it was too. Since then, the frightful cads and dishy heiresses of Wodehouse's world have had to carry on flapping in print. Here, however, comes Blandings, adapted from Wodehouse's series of rural capers set in prelapsarian Shropshire.

Rather than lavish oodles of budget on a spiffing primetime rival to Downton, the BBC have sensibly positioned Blandings as a Sunday early evening entertainment for all the family. From the moment the Empress, Lord Emsworth's prizewinningly sizeable pig, unleashes her first flatulent fanfare, the scheduling looks (and sounds) vindicated. Cast as his Lordship is Timothy Spall, suggesting just a whiff of the maxim that all pigs look like their owners. As Connie, his termagant of a sister, Jennifer Saunders often threatens to harrumph off to her room if she doesn't get her way. Deprived of the jaunty, silken music of Wodehouse's prose, we are yet to find out why this dire warning is quite such a bad thing.

With Lost in Austen, Guy Andrews has already proved a dab hand at paying tribute to much loved literature while luring it towards the present day. Sometimes here he meddles a little too assertively. When Freddy Emsworth (Jack Farthing) was busy getting the Old Bill drunk in order to break ex-cowboy Jimmy (James Norton) out of jug, pleasing strains of rag and Charleston made way for anachronistic boogie-woogie. Meanwhile some jokes are going to sail over the heads of a younger audience. Freddy alluded - a touch too louchely for teatime - to the Pink Pussy Club. And nowadays not everyone is going to laugh at this one: "Harrow? Yes I guessed he'd known corruption in his youth." But it's fun and doesn't think the world of itself.

To grasp the genius of PG Wodehouse, read him

The great writer's gifts do not translate to the screen, so Blandings was bound to fail.

Blandings: Jennifer Saunders stars in bland adaptation

I found Blandings monumentally dull and lacking in drama or comedy.

This adaptation of the PG Wodehouse stories has inevitably been dubbed a comic riposte to Downton Abbey and I'm all for that. Timothy Spall is bumbling ninth earl Clarence, much more interested in winning fattest pig prize at the country show than any of the human dramas, forgetting his son's name and being reluctant to intervene in highly unsuitable courtships.

Stephen Fry on Blandings

"Blandings is a world unto itself and Wodehouse pours into it his deepest feelings for England."