When Barnes Charity Players (BCP) member Marc Pearce, 26, caught re-runs of the iconic 1990s TV adapatations of PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster stories, he was inspired to seek out one of the original stories and bring it to the stage In his search for an appropriate story to adapt, Pearce inadvertently stumbled across Come On Jeeves!, a play Wodehouse wrote, with Guy Bolton, in 1952, and he has now directed a revival of the show, which opens at the Old Sorting Office, Barnes Green, on Tuesday.

It may surprise some to discover that, while there is plenty of the eponymous butler in the play, Bertie Wooster is nowhere to be seen.

Pearce, who has been with BCP for five years, says the fact that Bertie is absent, coupled with the play’s setting 30 years on from the original Jeeves stories, means the production has been able to escape the familiar image of Wodehouse’s world created by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.

“I think not having Bertie is one of the play’s main strengths, because, otherwise, you might just find yourself imitating Fry and Laurie,” he says.

“The fact that it’s set 30 years later means that Jeeves is much older and that also helps with avoiding imitation.

“That is not to say there are not some typical Wodehouse characters in there.

“A lot of his characters are all very similar – they are bumbling idiots, basically!”

Wooster is replaced in the play by one of these “bumbling idiots”, the Earl of Towcester, who Jeeves finds himself assigned to look after.

The Earl, otherwise known as Bill, is on his uppers and resolves to become a bookie to sort out his cash flow problems – the chaos that follows is what Pearce describes as the stuff of “typical farce”.

When he first mooted the idea of doing the play, Pearce was inundated with auditionees and he has also received an enthusiastic response from the PG Wodehouse Society.

So why does he think the writer has remained so popular after all these years?

“You can read so much into the work – with its satire alongside the genuine comedy of the one-liners,” he replies.

Come On Jeeves!, Old Sorting Office, Barnes, February 23-27, 7.30pm, £10/£8, to book call 020 8878 0419 or visit osoarts.org.uk