Blandings Castle - Film, Television and Radio

Film, Television and Radio

Horace Hodges played Lord Emsworth in a 1933 silent film adaptation of Summer Lightning

The Castle and its inhabitants were the subject of six half-hour adaptations under the title Blandings Castle, made by the BBC (also known as The World of Wodehouse series). Adapted from some of the shorts in Blandings Castle and Elsewhere and the classic "The Crime Wave at Blandings", they were broadcast in 1967 and starred Ralph Richardson as Lord Emsworth, Meriel Forbes as Lady Constance, Stanley Holloway as Beach and Derek Nimmo as Freddie. Only extracts from one episode survive ("Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend"), the series having suffered the fate of being wiped.

Between 1985 and 1992, BBC Radio 4 broadcast several adaptations, starring Richard Vernon as Emsworth and Ian Carmichael as Galahad.

In 1995, the BBC, with partners including WGBH Boston, adapted Heavy Weather into a 95-minute TV movie. It was first screened on Christmas Eve 1995 in the UK, and shown in the US by PBS on February 18, 1996. It starred Peter O'Toole as Lord Emsworth, Richard Briers as Gally, Roy Hudd as Beach, Samuel West as Monty Bodkin and Judy Parfitt as Lady Constance. It was directed by Jack Gold with a screenplay by Douglas Livingstone, and was generally well received by fans.

Many of the stories and novels are available as audio books, including a series narrated by Martin Jarvis.

BBC One is working on a new miniseries of six episodes, called Blandings, starring David Walliams and Jennifer Saunders, scheduled for broadcast in autumn 2012.

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