Ian is rejoined by composer, writer, musician, voice artist, and parafictionalist Peter Falconer to look at Indiscretions of Archie (1921), a series of short stories adapted into the form of a novel. Topics arising include the First World War, Prohibition, 'the Irish question' and Labour Relations.

There will be plot spoilers. 

Next month: The Clicking of Cuthbert, or Golf Without Tears.

You can e-mail me at [email protected]. 

Replenish the show's doubloons at ko-fi.com/wodehousekeeping. One-off or recurring payments gratefully received.

Hob nob and so forth at Bluesky or Facebook

Reference works consulted

Robert McCrum: Wodehouse: A Life

Sophie Ratcliffe, ed: P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters

Norman Murphy: A Wodehouse Handbook

Daniel Garrison and Neil Midkiff: Who's Who in Wodehouse, third edition

Lee Davis: Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern

Madame Eulalie's Rare Plums website

Wikipedia

Other Wodehouse works alluded to

The Swoop

A Gentleman of Leisure

Piccadilly Jim

The Inimitable Jeeves

The Code of the Woosters

The Prince and Betty

"Extricating Young Gussie"

"Leave it to Jeeves" AKA "The Artistic Career of Corky"

A Damsel in Distress

"Jeeves and the Chump Cyril"

Bring on the Girls (with Guy Bolton)

"We're Crooks" (song)

Uneasy Money

"Napoleon" (song)

"In Alcala"

"Doing Clarence a Bit of Good"

"Jeeves Makes an Omelette"

Also mentioned 

Baldwin King-Hall

Herbert Westbrook

Ella King-Hall

Biblia Wodehousiana

T. D. Skidmore (US illustrator)

Fred Astaire

A. Wallis Mills (UK illustrator)

Ian Hay

C H Bovill

James Bond

"Fatty" Arbuckle

Abe Erlanger

Abgail's Party

Song snippets

The Archies, "Sugar Sugar"

Sananda Maitreya, "If You Let Me Stay"

The Beach Boys, "It's Trying to Say"

The Divine Comedy, "Don't Mention the War"

Shonen Knife, "Fruits and Vegetables"

Little Richard, "Lucille"

Kenny Carter, "Showdown"

Sterling Trio "It's A Long Way Back To Mother's Knee" 

Cole Porter, "You're the Top"

Noel Coward, "Mad Dogs and Englishmen"

The Dorsey Brothers Orchestra, "Annie's Cousin Fannie"

Flanders and Swann, "Strike"

Magnetic Fields, "Goin' Back to the Country"

Cocteau Twins, "Tishbite"

Georges Brassens, "La chanson pour l'Auvergnat"

Sting, "An Englishman in New York"

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ian is joined for a fifth time by Alexander Rennie of the now concluded Forgotten Towns podcast and blog. They discuss Jill the Reckless, AKA The Little Warrior, from 1920. A standalone Anglo-American novel centred around the New York stage, it includes the first mention of the Drones Club. Ian and Alex both consider this one of the stronger Wodehouse books so far covered in the podcast.  

There will be plot spoilers. 

Next month: Indiscretions of Archie.

You can e-mail me at [email protected]. 

Help finance the show, Otis Pilkington style, at ko-fi.com/wodehousekeeping. One-off or recurring payments gratefully received.

Monitor my feeble attempts at self-promotion at Bluesky or Facebook

Reference works consulted

Robert McCrum: Wodehouse: A Life

Sophie Ratcliffe, ed: P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters

Norman Murphy: A Wodehouse Handbook

Daniel Garrison and Neil Midkiff: Who's Who in Wodehouse, third edition

Lee Davis: Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern

Frances Donaldson, ed: Yours, Plum

Madame Eulalie's Rare Plums website

Wikipedia

Other Wodehouse works alluded to

Something Fresh

The Prince and Betty

Uneasy Money

The Adventures of Sally

Leave it to Psmith

Bill the Conqueror

Big Money

"The Man Upstairs"

Indiscretions of Archie

The Inimitable Jeeves

A Damsel in Distress

"The Mixer"

The Luck of the Bodkins

The Rose of China

"Napoleon" in Have A Heart

The Small Bachelor

"Bill" in Show Boat

Anything Goes

Psmith Journalist

Company For Henry

Also mentioned

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

John Grant

Willy Mason

Walt Mason

Flanders and Swann, "The Safety Curtain", "Strike" and "In the D'Oyly Cart"

Richard D'Oyly Carte

Book of Daniel, The Bible

Beastie Boys, "Shadrach"

David Devant and His Spirit Wife, "Pimlico"

The Bowes-Lyons family

Dickens, David Copperfield and Bleak House

Beachcomber (J.B. Morton), the Captain Foulenough stories

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy

Ian Sproat

Julian Mitchell

The Ziegfeld Follies

Abraham Lincoln Erlanger

Napoleon Bonaparte

Cockburn's Port

Rennie Heartburn and Indigestion Relief

Diet Coke

Etta James, "I Just Want to Make Love To You"

Automat

Omar Khayaam

Alexander Woollcott

William J Halley, "Pullman Porters on Parade"

Robert S. Bader, Four of the Three Musketeers

Apocrypals podcast

Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Rivals 

The Orange Tree, Richmond

Patricia Hodge

Thank you for reading the notes! Typing them sometimes feels a little futile, but you make it all worthwhile.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.

You can e-mail me at [email protected], anonymously or otherwise

Furnish me with the needful at ko-fi.com/wodehousekeeping

Join in the feast of reason and flow of soul on Bluesky or Facebook

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

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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)

You can e-mail me at [email protected]

forward me your spare Colombian gold at ko-fi.com/wodehousekeeping

or follow the show on Bluesky or Facebook

Please tell your friends about the show: our publicity budget was lost in some unwise stocks and shares shenanegans.

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"

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.

You can e-mail me at [email protected]

tip me at ko-fi.com/wodehousekeeping

or follow the show on Bluesky or Facebook

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

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Drop the Dead Monkey! Ian is joined by writer and artist Tom Bailey to look at 1916's Uneasy Money, Wodehouse's second serial for the Saturday Evening Post, which had a personal significance for Plum and Ethel Wodehouse, as it is set in Long Island, setting of their courtship and early married life; and like them, the hero and heroine are married at the "Church 'Round the Corner" on Madison Square, also the inspiration for the song of the same name by Wodehouse and Jerome Kern. Tom and Ian debate the merits or otherwise of Wodehouse's more romantic novels, and of romance stories in general.

You can e-mail me at [email protected],

give me an unexpected legacy at ko-fi.com/wodehousekeeping

or join in the feast of reason and flow of soul on Bluesky or Facebook

Other works by Wodehouse mentioned

"Bill" (song)

"At Geisenheimer's"

"Extricating Young Gussie"

Something Fresh

Performing Flea

A Gentleman of Leisure

Psmith Journalist

The Swoop

"Church Round the Corner" (song) in Sally

Indiscretions of Archie

Bachelors Anonymous

Ring For Jeeves (the Jeeves novel without Bertie)

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

Michael Buerk

Nicolae Ceaușescu

Bob Peck

Jeeves and Wooster

David Nobbs

The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin

Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, Bleak House, Pickwick Papers

Oscar Wilde

George Eliot

Olga Tokarczuk The Empusium, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of The Dead

Thomas Mann The Magic Mountain

Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

Henry Fielding, Tom Jones

Laurence Sterne, Tristam Shandy

Tobias Smollett

Jonathan Coe

Honoré de Balzac

Emile Zola

Vanity Fair (US)

Mary Poppins

F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Edna May

The Belle of New York (Musical)

Lady Constance MacKenzie

Sarah Bernhardt

How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies

John Mortimer, The Rumpole stories

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations

Superman III

Hergé,the Tintin stories

Ionicus (Joshua Charles Armitage)

Rashomon

Bringing Up Baby

The Church of the Transfiguration, New York

Alice Fraser, A Passion For Passion

Georgette Heyer

When Harry Met Sally

Nora Ephron, Heartburn

Sherlock Jr

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Host Ian Cockburn (of the Shropshire Cockburns) is rejoined by storyteller and writer Matthew Bellwood to discuss Psmith Journalist, the third Psmith novel, and one of the first of Wodehouse's novels to be set in America. The novel first appeared in The Captain from 1909-10 but didn't appear in book form till 1915, by which point it had already been repurposed in 1912 for the US version of The Prince and Betty

A tale of yellow journalism in gangland New York. 

This podcast contains spoilers, and some discussion of racism.

You can e-mail me at [email protected]

Put doubloons in the old oak chest at ko-fi.com/wodehousekeeping

or follow me on Bluesky or Facebook

Wodehousekeeping cannot be muzzled

Other works by Wodehouse mentioned

Mike and Psmith

The Luck of the Bodkins

Psmith in the City

The Prince and Betty

A Gentleman of Leisure

The Kid Brady stories

The Little Nugget

The Luck Stone

"The Episode of the Live Weekly"

Reference works consulted

Sophie Ratcliffe, P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters

Robert McCrum, Wodehouse: A Life

Norman Murphy, A Wodehouse Handbook

Madame Eulalie's Rare Plums website

Also mentioned

Columbo: Strange Bedfellows

Twin Peaks

The Godfather

Boardwalk Empire

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

Colin From Accounts

Carol Vorderman

Ted Kessler, Paper Cuts

Al Capone

Monk Eastman

Groucho Marx

Doctor Who

Sandie Shaw, "Reviewing the Situation"

John Mitchell Jr.

Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm

Cole Porter

Noël Coward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ian is joined by Tania Agnihotri to look at Something Fresh, AKA Something New, the first Blandings novel, published 1915. The book introduces the immortal Lord Emsworth, Freddie Threepwood, Beach the butler and the Efficient Baxter, though much of the focus is on this month's imposters at the castle. Content note: bad American accents.

You can e-mail me at [email protected]

make a donation at ko-fi.com/wodehousekeeping

or follow or contact me on Bluesky or Facebook

Other works by Wodehouse mentioned:

The Mr Mulliner Stories

"The Story of Webster"

"The Truth About George"

Mike and Psmith (part two of Mike)

The Ukridge stories

Love Among the Chickens

The Luck Stone

"The Matrimonial Sweepstakes"

"The Delayed Exit of Claude and Eustace"

"A Man of Means: The Episode of the Hired Past"

Psmith in the City

"The Crime Wave At Blandings"

The Reggie Pepper stories

"Ruth in Exile"

Right Ho, Jeeves

"Pearls Means Tears"

"Strychnine in the Soup"

Leave it to Psmith

"The Goalkeeper and the Plutocrat"

"A Man of Means: The Episode of the Live Weekly"

"A Pal Like You" from Oh, Boy!

Reference works consulted

Sophie Ratcliffe, P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters

Robert McCrum, Wodehouse: A Life

Norman Murphy, A Wodehouse Handbook

Paul Kent, Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

Madame Eulalie's Rare Plums website

Also mentioned

Saki, "Mrs Packletide's Tiger"

George Ade

Herbert W. Westbrook

William Townend

Samuel Johnson ("A man who is tired of London...")

Alfred Harmsworth

Simpson's in the Strand

Philip Peveril Wodehouse

Georgette Heyer

J M Barrie, The Admirable Crichton

Jeeves and Wooster (TV series)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.