Television Reviews : Delightful ‘Old Reliable’ Is One for the Books

P.G. Wodehouse, creator of the Honorable Bertie Wooster, the estimable Jeeves and a veritable treasure-trove of other English upper-class eccentrics, comes to PBS tonight with a “Great Performances” presentation of his novella “The Old Reliable.”

Airing at 9 on Channels 28, 15 and 24, this light, ‘30s-era frolic begins a new “Great Performances” trilogy of “Tales From the Hollywood Hills,” short stories based on the works of famous authors who at one time made Tinseltown their home. Works by William Faulkner and Gavin Lambert will follow on successive Fridays.

Tonight’s romp begins when former silent-film star Adela Cork (Rosemary Harris)--of whom it is said, “she slept her way to the middle”--offers her four ex-husbands, all heads of major studios, the chance to pay to keep her from publishing her naughty memoirs.

Adela’s sister Wilhelmina (Lynn Redgrave, with a toothy American accent) has ghostwritten the book, considers it her masterpiece and wants to see it published.

Meanwhile, the proper new English butler Phipps (Paxton Whitehead) has unexpected safecracking tendencies, Adela’s charmingly dissolute brother-in-law Smedley (Joseph Maher) has lost liquor cabinet privileges and a young couple on the path to true love (Tom Isbell and Lori Loughlin) finds it full of potholes.

Wodehouse’s plots are formula, yet a unique formula that imbues every page with a genuine blitheness of spirit and unexpected delights. This is imitation Wodehouse--the effort shows--but director Michael Blakemore, the teleplay by Robert Mundy and cast members Redgrave, Harris, Whitehead and Maher make it a bubbly tribute.

“The Old Reliable” also screens Saturday at 9 p.m. on Channel 50.