Jeeves & Wooster: The Collected Radio Dramas

By: P. G. Wodehouse

Narrated by: full cast, Michael Hordern, Richard Briers

Length: 17 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

A rollicking collection of s ix acclaimed dramatisations of P.G Wodehouse's Jeeves & Wooster novels, starring Michael Hordern and Richard Briers as Jeeves and Wooster. Also featuring Maurice Denham, Paul Eddington, David Jason, John Le Mesurier, Miriam Margolyes, Jonathan Cecil, Liza Goddard and Patrick Cargill.

In The Inimitable Jeeves, Aunt Agatha is forcing Bertie to get engaged to the formidable Honoria Glossop. Can Jeeves save the day? 

Right Ho, Jeeves sees mayhem breaking out at Brinkley Court, but there are more brains in the Wooster household than just Jeeves... 

In The Code of the Woosters, who would think that a silver cow-creamer could cause so much trouble? Uncle Tom wants it and Aunt Dahlia is blackmailing Bertie to steal it. 

In Jeeves: Joy in the Morning, Steeple Bumphleigh is a village to be avoided for Bertie, as it contains the appalling Aunt Agatha. Still, there are good deeds to be done.

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit finds Jeeves in for a few surprises when returns from his annual shrimping holiday in Bognor Regis.

In Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, Madeline Bassett and Gussie Fink-Nottle’s engagement is on the rocks, and poor Bertie's next in line for the fair maiden’s hand. 

Publisher’s note: As of August 2019, the dramatisations have been re-ordered into their correct order, by original publication date: The Inimitable Jeeves, Right Ho, Jeeves, The Code of the Woosters, Joy in the Morning, Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit and Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves.

©2019 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2019 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

tracks out of order

At a certain point, this collection jumbles up the correct order of the stories.

Here is the correct order, according to Wikipedia's 'What Ho, Jeeves' page:

The Inimitable Jeeves: tracks 1-8
Right Ho, Jeeves: tracks 9-16

Here's where it gets tricky. Track 17 skips WAY ahead to one of the very last stories. So after track 16, go to track 30.

The Code of the Woosters: tracks 30-36

Thank You, Jeeves (4 episodes), The Mating Season (5 episodes), and The Ordeal of Young Tuppy (single episode) are missing from this collection entirely.

But if you go to track 43, you can pick up from there...

Joy in the Morning: tracks 43-49

Now you'll need to skip back to track 17...

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit: tracks 17-29

And finally, go to track 37 for the final run of episodes that closed out the series.

Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves: 37-42

It's nice to have the bulk of this extraordinary series finally collected in one place, but I wish someone at the BBC or Audible had been paying attention to the track order. It would also have been nice to see the 'missing' episodes included.

Recording flawed

Silly, enjoyable, lighthearted just as expected, and very nicely acted - but the recording chopped and changed and I'm pretty sure chapters were out of order, or sometimes ended suddenly.

Bow to the king!

For my 2 pence worth, no one surpasses P.G. Wodehouse for sheer brains, wit and slapstick comedy! His word-smithiness gets me every time. If you’re feeling down, try a little P.G. Wodehouse. Doctors orders!

Perfect casting

Wonderful job of casting the parts of Jeeves and Wooster. The production made me actually laugh out loud on more than one occasion, which didn't go over well with the other people on the bus on my morning commute.

An Oldie, But Goodie

These are simply brilliant adaptations (better even than the Clive Exton TV adaptation) that keep all the wonderful humour and vibrant language of Wodehouse intact. The cast is simply superb, too, with Richard Briers as the perfect Bertie Wooster - his delivery had me in stitches!

Enjoy the books instead

These radio broadcasts and the performers are okay. The books, and the narrations by Cecil and those of Jarvis, are soooo much better.

Classic edition of the classics

These timeless BBC dramatisations of the best misadventures are spot on! Michael Hordern and Richard Briers are wonderful in the roles of Jeeves and Wooster, keeping Woodehouses classics fresh and funny. They should have made more of them.

Do Not Like

I'm really not enjoying this performance. I had to stop five minutes in. This portrayal of Bertie is obnoxious and not in a good way. Go with the Cecil performance.

Laughing out loud...

...is not usually something I look for in my bedtime listening, but I have to reset my timer many nights as I don’t want to miss anything...the comic timing is flawless in this production.
Best Jeeves & Wooster audio performances ever!

Classic Jeeves

Kept me entertained for months. Loved the performance. my only regret is I wish the stories were in chronological order

The third best way to experience Jeeves & Wooster

Saying that this is the third best way to experience the books may sound like a back-handed compliment, but when you consider that number one is to listen to the Jonathan Cecil unabridged audiobooks, and number two is to read the books proper, it's actually high praise indeed.

Performances are generally excellent. Briers occasionally overacts, but is usually very good, and the Madeline Basset isn't quite right, but that aside these are studied performances.

The scripts really are wonderful, they are incredibly faithful to the source material. It's as fine an adaptation as you can possibly imagine. This is where the TV adaptation starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie fell down, with some poor quality and unfaithful adaptations which failed to capture the spirit of the original. In my opinion, it wasted the two brilliant stars and an amazing opportunity to commit the series to film.

The only real issue with this set is that the books are in the wrong order, which feels like a bit of a 'you had one job' problem. If you're going to the trouble of issuing this set, surely it'd only take minutes to make sure they're in the right order.

Stories in wrong order

Very enjoyable radio adaptations, but very careless to have the stories in the wrong order

Excellent dramatisation, but stories all mixed up

The proformances and production are excellent and capture the stories perfectly, but it is very strange that the stories are out of order. It does lessen the enjoyment somewhat when you have to reorder the timeline mentally as you go through.

Hours and hours of my fave author

So glad to have come across this brilliant collection - makes a great listen before bed. Laughing out loud into sleep!

As good an adaption of Wodehouse as is possible

It's wonderful. These are classics for a reason.

The only thing to note is they've messed up the order of the different series so when listening in order you realise they are referring to stuff occurring in previous series etc.

Superb dramatisations

The dramatisations are superb with a very classy set of actors.

To the reviewer mentioning that the stories are in the wrong order, it's best to write directly to [e-mail] and tell them - had many successes with other dramatic pieces. I'd do it myself of course but I had these on tapes many years back and don't know the reading order because I picked them up as I could find them.

Even in it's current form, the stories are still very much listenable and in situations in which there's audio problems, deleting and redownloading solves things. I refer you to my review of both `Tracks series 1 and 2" and "Tommies". Audible really do listen to feedback like this so I would really write to them via email.

Great performance shame about the compilation

Really good recording and performance throughout. Real shame the person/persons who compiled the stories had done so totally out of order. Really should have considered putting the stories in chronological order of events, would have made the performances and stories blend better

Excellent cast and performance hindered by stories out of natural sequence

Amazing cast and performance; however as reported by others some of the stories are out of sequence which spoils the overall effect.

Wonderful, but flawed.

I have loved these recordings for some time, and was delighted to find them collated into one handy Audible download. However...THEY’RE OUT OF ORDER! Two (so far) of the stories are mixed up with one another, which has ultimately ruined them both.

The performances themselves are, for me, utterly perfect, as are the stories when listened to in the correct order. I hope the errors in ordering can be corrected.

More than worth the cost of a credit, and probably the price too. Just a little disappointing.

Wunderbahr

I just love this - Richard Briers is so good as Bertie. I listen again and again because it is just so perfect