David Climie (1920 – 1995) was co-writer of the popular 1960s and 1970s television comedy series, ‘Oh, Brother!’, which starred Derek Nimmo, as well as ‘Lulu’s Back in Town’, the comedy series ‘Bootsie and Snudge’, ‘Backs to the Land’, ‘Wodehouse Playhouse’, ‘That Was The Week That Was’, ‘The Army Game’, the sci-fi series ‘Out of the Unknown’, the radio version of ‘Whack-O!’ and the comedy film ‘Desert Mice’.
“When I hear the words ‘Wodehouse adaptation’, I reach for my revolver. Those who try to take that exquisite barminess and work it to some other end than the flawless prose it which it is enshrined cross my path at their peril: should they end up carrying their teeth away in their hat, they have only themselves to blame. Perfection is not to be messed with; and I, who was once, in Florence, offered a brass miniature of Michelangelo’s ‘David’ whose head unscrewed to reveal the cigarettes within, count the desecration as nothing compared with what I have seen done to Wodehouse by the army of hacks that have sought to capitalise upon his genius.
None of which, I am overjoyed to report, applies to last night’s delightful series premiere: I mention it, only to indicate the lengths to which any adapter must go if he expects to worm any approval from me, and writer David Climie and director David Askey have wormed with a skill and tact worthy of the Master himself.”