“Stephen Fry and
Hugh Laurie shouldn’t age,” says my Dad, leaning against the kitchen counter.
“Seeing them get old…it just doesn’t…it’s weird.”
Back in the ’90s,
the two British actors co-starred in Jeeves
and Wooster. Fry and Laurie played, respectively, the unflappable,
omniscient valet, Jeeves, and his dimwitted, talkative employer, Bertrum
Wilberforce Wooster. The stories are set in an idyllic pre-war atmosphere,
where the greatest ill that can befall a man is ridiculous romantic dilemmas or
bogus get-rich-quick schemes. Let’s be honest, it’s pure escapism—albeit
escapism with lively wit, brilliant plotting, and hilarious (if somewhat
one-dimensional) characters. No one ages and, of course, no one dies.
That’s why it’s
so weird to see old Fry and Laurie. I had a similar reaction to seeing Anthony
Valentine in a modern movie. I’d had a crush on him in the 1975 TV show Raffles…and suddenly, he was in his
seventies. He's old enough to be my grandfather.
Why this violent
reaction, this jerking back from reality?
