Wodehousekeeping

Ian is joined again by his brother Josh to talk about P. G. Wodehouse's A Damsel in Distress, the 1919 standalone novel that has a lot of similiarites to a Blandings Novel. It also features the return of Keggs (The Man Upstairs, The Coming of Bill) and the themes of medieval-style chivalry, class snobbery and musical theatre. We also talk about the 1937 film version, starring Fred Astaire, featuring songs by George and Ira Gershwin, and a screenplay co-written by Wodehouse.

There will be spoilers.

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Reference works consulted
Robert McCrum, Wodehouse: A Life
Sophie Ratcliffe, P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters
Norman Murphy, A Wodehouse Handbook
Richard Usborne, Wodehouse At Work to the End
Daniel Garrison and Neil Midkiff, Who's Who in Wodehouse
Lee Davis, Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern
Barry Day, The Complete Lyrics of P. G. Wodehouse
Madame Eulalie's Rare Plums website
Wikipedia and IMDb

Other works by Wodehouse mentioned:
A Gentleman of Leisure
Something Fresh
A Damsel in Distress (play and film adaptations)
The Girl Behind the Gun (show)
"The Good Angel"
"Love Me, Love My Dog"
Something Fishy
Summer Lightning
Bachelors Anonymous
"Sir Agravaine"
The Prince and Betty
"Avenged!"
"Extricating Young Gussie"
Piccadilly Jim
Uneasy Money
Spring Fever
The Code of the Woosters
Jill the Reckless
Miss 1917 (show)
Oh Kay (show)
Rosalie (show)

Also mentioned:
Ian Hay
Basil Foster
W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman, 1066 and All That
George Gershwin
Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (Bollywood adaptation)
Maud and Ivan Caryll
Euros Childs, "Thrips"
Jerome Kern
Taskmaster
Reece Shearsmith
Mary Deane
The Regal Theatre
Alice Dovey
Anton Chekhov
Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle
Enid Blyton
Richard Harris Barham, The Ingoldsby Legends
Lewis Carroll, "The Walrus and the Carpenter"
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Machiavelli
David and Jonathan (Book of Samuel)
Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac
Riot Women
Guy Bolton
Ira Gershwin
Pandro S Berman
George Stevens
Allan Scott
Fred Astaire
Ginger Rogers
Joan Fontaine
George Burns
Gracie Allen
Reginald Gardiner
Ray Noble
It's A Wonderful Life
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Gwen Sheldon has stayed on the line to help me look at The Coming of Bill (1919, but really 1914), Also known as Their Mutual Child or The White Hope, it's a rare serious novel (though featuring some choice quips) with a plot supplied for Wodehouse by a helpful magazine editor called Bob Davis.
There will be spoilers.
Content note: discussion of eugenics, nazis, racism, death, and general bad times. (Surely some mistake? -Ed)

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Reference works consulted
Sophie Ratcliffe, P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters
Norman Murphy, A Wodehouse Handbook
Richard Usborne, Wodehouse At Work to the End
Daniel Garrison and Neil Midkiff, Who's Who in Wodehouse
Madame Eulalie's Rare Plums website

Other works by Wodehouse mentioned:
My Man Jeeves
The Man Upstairs and Other Stories
Bring on the Girls (with Guy Bolton)
"A Prisoner of War"
Piccadilly Jim
Jill the Reckless
"By Advice of Counsel"
"The Good Angel"
"Love Me, Love My Dog"
A Damsel in Distress
The Little Nugget
The Globe 'By the Way' Book
The Man With Two Left Feet and Other Stories

Also mentioned:
Bob Davis
Jack Johnson
James Jeffries
Wodehouse's adopted daughter Leonora Cazalet
Rembrandt van Rijn
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
L M Montgomery, The Blue Castle
Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events

Short musical snippets included or parodied:
Noël Coward, "Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans"
Dire Straits, "Lady Writer"
Helen Morgan, "Bill" (Wodehouse/Kern)
Elvis Presley, "Old Shep"
Nobuyoshi Koshibe and Katsuo Ohno, Theme from "Mysterious Cities of Gold"
The Gothic Archies, "Scream and Run Away"
"Napoleon" (Wodehouse/Kern)
Kimya Dawson, "It's Been Raining"
Kenny Carter, "Showdown"
The Seven Inches (my band) "Our Gang of Friends" and "Bad Genes"

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Ian is re-rejoined by Gwen Sheldon to look at THE FIRST JEEVES BOOK (if you think it counts): My Man Jeeves, a UK only collection of eight short stories, half of which are among the earliest Jeeves stories, all set in New York. The other half are Reggie Pepper stories, Reggie being an early prototype of Bertie Wooster. We also look at the three other Reggie Pepper stories that were published in magazines but were left out of the book collections during The Master's lifetime.

There will be spoilers.

You can e-mail me at [email protected]
tip me at ko-fi.com/wodehousekeeping
or follow the show on Bluebook or Facesky

Stories covered in this episode:
"Leave it to Jeeves"
"Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest"
"Jeeves and the Hard-boiled Egg"
"Absent Treatment"
"Helping Freddie"
"Rallying Round Old George"
"Doing Clarence a Bit of Good"
"The Aunt and the Sluggard"

"Disentangling Old Percy"
"Concealed Art"
"The Test Case"

Reference works consulted
Sophie Ratcliffe, P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters
Robert McCrum, Wodehouse: A Life
Norman Murphy, A Wodehouse Handbook
Richard Usborne, Wodehouse At Work to the End
Daniel Garrison and Neil Midkiff, Who's Who in Wodehouse
Madame Eulalie's Rare Plums website

Other works by Wodehouse mentioned:
The Man Upstairs and Other Stories
The Man With Two Left Feet and Other Stories
Carry On Jeeves
The Inimitable Jeeves
"Jeeves Takes Charge"
"Extricating Young Gussie"
"Bertie Changes His Mind"
The Adventures of Sally
"Rough-Hew them How We Will"
Love Among the Chickens
Something Fresh
A Gentleman of Leisure
"The Fatal Kink in Algernon"
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit
"Fixing it for Freddie
"Unpleasantness at Kozy Kot"
A Few Quick Ones (US version)
"Deep Waters"
Brother Alfred (play/film)
Not George Washington
The Globe By the Way Book
Thank You Jeeves
Piccadilly Jim
"George and Alfred"
Plum Pie
"Jeeves Makes an Omelette"
A Few Quick Ones
"The Wigmore Venus"
"Archibald's Benefit"

Also alluded to:
Harry Leon Wilson, Ruggles of Red Gap
Ian Carmichael and Dennis Price, "What Would I Do Without You, Jeeves?"
Bud Fisher, Mutt and Jeff
R Outcault, Buster Brown
James Sant, The Soul's Awakening
Agatha Christie
Herbert Westbrook
N A Knox
F Opper, Happy Hooligan
Laurence Grossmith
George Grossmith Jr.
George Grossmith Sr. and Weedon Grossmith, Diary of a Nobody
Leslie Havergal Bradshaw
Cupid's Inspiration, "Yesterday Has Gone"
Billy Sunday
Douglas Fairbanks Sr.
Fred Stone
Making Good with Mother
Cutting Out Venus
World of Wooster
Jeeves and Wooster
Helen Wodehouse
George Herriman, The Dingbat Family and Krazy Kat
The Beatles, "Baby's in Black"

Boost for Birdsburg!
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A solo episode this time, as I (Ian Cockburn) turn to 1917's The Man With Two Left Feet and Other Stories, P. G. Wodehouse's second collection of short stories for adults, which includes "Extricating Young Gussie", the story that first introduces the legendary characters Bertie Wooster (here apparently called Bertie Mannering-Phipps), Aunt Agatha and - in a cameo role - Jeeves. There are plot spoilers. Content note: see below next to individual stories.

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Stories covered, with start times:
"Bill the Bloodhound" 6m
"Extricating Young Gussie" 17m
"Wilton's Holiday" 33m 46s
"The Mixer: He Meets a Shy Gentleman" 42m
"The Mixer: He Moves in Society" 49m
"Crowned Heads" 54m
"At Geisenheimer's" 1h 1m
"The Making of Mac's" 1h 11m (CN: suicide)
"One Touch of Nature" 1h 22m
"Black for Luck" 1h 27m
"The Romance of an Ugly Policeman" 1h 35m
"A Sea of Troubles" 1h 43m (CN: suicide)
"The Man with Two Left Feet" 1h 46m

Other works by Wodehouse mentioned
The Man Upstairs and Other Stories
Piccadilly Jim
Something Fresh
The Reggie Pepper stories
"Three From Dunsterville"
"Deep Waters",
"Fixing it for Freddie"
The golf stories
The Girl on the Boat
Bustanoby's
"In Alkala"
"By Advice of Counsel"
"Something to Worry About"
"The Man Upstairs"
"The Man Who Disliked Cats"
My Man Jeeves
The Prince and Betty
Uneasy Money
Joy in the Morning
Nuts and Wine (revue)
A Man of Means

Reference works consulted
Sophie Ratcliffe, P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters
Robert McCrum, Wodehouse: A Life
Norman Murphy, A Wodehouse Handbook
Richard Usborne, Wodehouse at Work to the End
Madame Eulalie's Rare Plums website

Also mentioned
George Grossmith, Jr.
Harry Leon Wilson, Ruggles of Red Gap
Percy Jeeves
Leslie Havergal Bradshaw
The Beatles, "Get Back"
Magnetic Fields, "Goin' Back to the Country"
O. Henry
The Golden Butterfly (film adaptation of "The Making of Mac's")
M. F. Carey, "Learning McFadden to Waltz"
Leonora Cazalet
Denis Mackail "At Mr Besley's"
Do the Right Thing podcast
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Ian is joined by Nigel Townshend to enthuse over 1917's Piccadilly Jim, a breakthrough novel for Wodehouse. Nigel voices his displeasure at the 2004 film version. There are plot spoilers.

You can e-mail me at [email protected]
tip me at ko-fi.com/wodehousekeeping
or follow the show on Bluesky or Facebook

Other works by Wodehouse mentioned
Leave it to Psmith
The Little Nugget
A Damsel in Distress (film screenplay)
A Gentleman of Leisure
"Concealed Art"
The Riviera Girl (musical, with Guy Bolton and Emmerich Kalman)
Bring On the Girls (memoir, with Guy Bolton)
Love Among the Chickens
"Rallying Round Old George"
Anything Goes (musical)

Reference works consulted
Sophie Ratcliffe, P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters
Robert McCrum, Wodehouse: A Life
Norman Murphy, A Wodehouse Handbook
Barry Day, The Complete Lyrics of P. G. Wodehouse
Lee Davis, Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern
Madame Eulalie's Rare Plums website

Also mentioned
The three film adaptations of the book
Blandings (TV series)
New York Giants
The Regent Grill
Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese
Hugh Laurie
George Herriman, "The Dingbat Family" & "Krazy Kat" comic strips
Delmonico's
Bachelors' Club
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