0:00:02 > 0:00:04MUSIC: "By The Sleepy Lagoon" by Eric Coates
0:00:06 > 0:00:11"And one book. You already have the statutory ration of the Bible
0:00:11 > 0:00:15- and the works of Shakespeare." - "I don't want the works of Shakespeare."
0:00:15 > 0:00:18"Can I take PG Wodehouse's collected works instead?"
0:00:18 > 0:00:23"No. That would... You may take your favourite three or four novels
0:00:23 > 0:00:26of PG Wodehouse. We'll bind those together for you."
0:00:29 > 0:00:32That's the great Roy Plomley, letting me know who's in charge
0:00:32 > 0:00:36on Desert Island Discs nearly three decades ago.
0:00:36 > 0:00:40But the programme invited me back just a few years later,
0:00:40 > 0:00:44and this time the BBC granted my foolish wish
0:00:44 > 0:00:48to take away the life's work of PG Wodehouse -
0:00:48 > 0:00:51to my mind, and the minds of better men than me,
0:00:51 > 0:00:55the best comic writer who ever laid his fingers on a keyboard.
0:00:55 > 0:00:57JAZZ-DANCE MUSIC
0:00:57 > 0:01:01So, this is a chance to find out what his work reveals
0:01:01 > 0:01:04about his world and ours,
0:01:04 > 0:01:07to uncover, if it's possible,
0:01:07 > 0:01:10some of the skill and complexity
0:01:10 > 0:01:14behind writing that just...trips off the page,
0:01:14 > 0:01:21to explore the elusive man behind a familiar, even controversial name,
0:01:21 > 0:01:25and to share an abiding passion
0:01:25 > 0:01:28with some like-minded coves.
0:01:28 > 0:01:31It's impossible to describe the sunniness of the language,
0:01:31 > 0:01:34the way it lifts you out of yourself like no other writer on Earth!
0:01:34 > 0:01:37I roar with laughter almost all the time.
0:01:37 > 0:01:40He's, I suppose, the funniest writer I've ever read.
0:01:40 > 0:01:42He is, really... I mean, he is truly a genius,
0:01:42 > 0:01:46in the sense that he is unique. There isn't anybody else like him.
0:01:46 > 0:01:51It's a deal-breaker. I couldn't be friends with someone who doesn't find him funny.
0:01:51 > 0:01:53It's like suddenly being given a glass of champagne.
0:01:53 > 0:01:56You just go, "Oh, well, yes. I think so!"
0:01:56 > 0:01:59Um... I just love it!
0:01:59 > 0:02:03It's a sort of comedy pornography. It's hard comedy.
0:02:14 > 0:02:17Well, maybe... Maybe I was being a little rash,
0:02:17 > 0:02:20twisting the BBC's arm for Wodehouse's complete works,
0:02:20 > 0:02:23because this groaning pile
0:02:23 > 0:02:27doesn't even come close to representing the oeuvre -
0:02:27 > 0:02:33just a healthy selection of his novels and collected short stories.
0:02:33 > 0:02:36Add memoires, countless magazine pieces,
0:02:36 > 0:02:39lyrics for the big musicals of the day,
0:02:39 > 0:02:41plays and film scripts -
0:02:41 > 0:02:45you'd need an age on that desert island to get through it.
0:02:45 > 0:02:48The sheer volume of it all is remarkable enough.
0:02:48 > 0:02:54But what really knocks you sideways about Wodehouse's 70 years and more
0:02:54 > 0:02:57as a professional writer is that virtually everything he did
0:02:57 > 0:02:59was bathed in sunshine,
0:02:59 > 0:03:02written to amuse,
0:03:02 > 0:03:06and that he succeeded with spectacular, joyous regularity.
0:03:06 > 0:03:09Just take Bertie Wooster's description
0:03:09 > 0:03:12of the formidable Honoria Glossop.
0:03:12 > 0:03:15Of course, there are probably fellows in the world -
0:03:15 > 0:03:18tough, hardy blokes with strong chins and glittering eyes -
0:03:18 > 0:03:21who could get engaged to this Glossop menace and like it,
0:03:21 > 0:03:24but I knew perfectly well that Biffy was not one of them.
0:03:24 > 0:03:28Honoria, you see, is one of those robust, dynamic girls
0:03:28 > 0:03:30with the muscles of a welterweight and a laugh
0:03:30 > 0:03:35like a squadron of cavalry charging over a tin bridge.
0:03:35 > 0:03:37So, starting somewhere near the beginning,
0:03:37 > 0:03:42here's our man Pelham Grenville, or Plum, as he called himself,
0:03:42 > 0:03:45as a mere lad - that's him on the right -
0:03:45 > 0:03:49alongside his brothers Armine and Peverill.
0:03:49 > 0:03:52Years later, Wodehouse would have Bertie Wooster observe,
0:03:52 > 0:03:55"You know, Jeeves, there's some raw work pulled at the font
0:03:55 > 0:04:00from time to time." I wonder where he got that idea!
0:04:00 > 0:04:04He was born into what we would call, I think, the upper-middle classes.
0:04:04 > 0:04:08His father was a judge in Hong Kong,
0:04:08 > 0:04:12and so his family was symbolic, one might say,
0:04:12 > 0:04:18of the type of family in the high period of the British Empire
0:04:18 > 0:04:20that both had its roots in the land,
0:04:20 > 0:04:23extending, administering, the great British Empire,
0:04:23 > 0:04:26the greatest empire the world had ever seen.
0:04:27 > 0:04:30'Sir Edward Cazelet, the author's step-grandson,
0:04:30 > 0:04:33'explained to me just what being part of a family
0:04:33 > 0:04:37'of imperial civil servants meant for the young Wodehouse.'
0:04:37 > 0:04:40Plum actually saw his parents only three times
0:04:40 > 0:04:42between the ages of two and 15.
0:04:42 > 0:04:45He saw them for six months in all over that period.
0:04:45 > 0:04:49So he really had no close relationship with them.
0:04:49 > 0:04:52Any responsible social worker nowadays would say,
0:04:52 > 0:04:55"This is quite intolerable. There'll be problems."
0:04:55 > 0:05:00When he was over 90, Wodehouse could still vividly recall a childhood
0:05:00 > 0:05:04spent shuttled between his gaggle of aunts and uncles.
0:05:04 > 0:05:07Many of the latter were clergymen, and the young Plum would join them
0:05:07 > 0:05:09on visits to the local gentry.
0:05:09 > 0:05:13There always came a time when the hostess would say,
0:05:13 > 0:05:15"Don't you think it would be nice
0:05:15 > 0:05:19if your little nephew had tea in the servants' hall?"
0:05:19 > 0:05:22And I'd go off to the servants' hall,
0:05:22 > 0:05:27and they're full of sprightly footmen and vivacious parlour maids...
0:05:29 > 0:05:32..and I loved it. I got on awfully well with them.
0:05:32 > 0:05:36Wodehouse virtually had no contact with his parents.
0:05:36 > 0:05:40Do you think that had a lasting effect on his personality?
0:05:40 > 0:05:42I think he grew up as a kind of orphan.
0:05:42 > 0:05:45Um, the first time he saw his mother,
0:05:45 > 0:05:48when he was four years old - the first time consciously -
0:05:48 > 0:05:52he thought she was another aunt. And they were absent from his life.
0:05:52 > 0:05:55He was brought up by aunts, and by butlers and chambermaids
0:05:55 > 0:05:58and footmen.
0:05:58 > 0:06:01This was his world. He lived, as it were, below stairs,
0:06:01 > 0:06:04and the picture you get of adults in his books
0:06:04 > 0:06:08is of a small boy looking at them from the wrong end of a telescope.
0:06:08 > 0:06:12Something I particularly love and admire about Wodehouse
0:06:12 > 0:06:15is his eternal optimism.
0:06:15 > 0:06:19But it's not difficult to see the impact of a lonely childhood
0:06:19 > 0:06:23running through his long life. Vast energy went into his books,
0:06:23 > 0:06:25but precious little in the way of emotion,
0:06:25 > 0:06:29and he dealt with the real world by ignoring it
0:06:29 > 0:06:31or making fun of it.
0:06:31 > 0:06:34You don't read him to experience a sort of sense of, er...
0:06:34 > 0:06:36HE LAUGHS ..of a long, developing story
0:06:36 > 0:06:41in which you get closer to the social and, er,
0:06:41 > 0:06:44emotional centres of his characters.
0:06:44 > 0:06:48One of the reasons I think people read Wodehouse's novels
0:06:48 > 0:06:52is not to find out more about people's feelings
0:06:52 > 0:06:54but to watch the way in which feeling is managed.
0:06:54 > 0:06:58That's why people read Wodehouse when they're unhappy.
0:06:58 > 0:07:00He's like a children's writer in one sense.
0:07:00 > 0:07:02It's a complete fantasy world.
0:07:02 > 0:07:06Nobody really gets hurt. Nothing really terrible happens.
0:07:06 > 0:07:09And because they're about people who are doing nothing
0:07:09 > 0:07:11and living in this extraordinary world
0:07:11 > 0:07:16which is fancy-free and has no consequences, it's comedy.
0:07:16 > 0:07:18I'm sorting through these clothes.
0:07:18 > 0:07:22Er, these are for repair and these for discarding.
0:07:23 > 0:07:27Wait a second! This white mess jacket is brand new!
0:07:27 > 0:07:30I assumed it had got into your wardrobe by mistake, sir -
0:07:30 > 0:07:33or else that it had been placed there by your enemies.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36I will have you know, Jeeves, that I bought this in Cannes!
0:07:36 > 0:07:40- And wore it, sir? - Every night, at the casino.
0:07:40 > 0:07:42Beautiful women used to try and catch my eye.
0:07:42 > 0:07:45Presumably they thought you were a waiter, sir.
0:07:45 > 0:07:48Don't you think it was strange, though,
0:07:48 > 0:07:50that he retained
0:07:50 > 0:07:55that kind of almost naive English-public-school attitude?
0:07:55 > 0:07:57Yes. I mean, the mystery of Wodehouse
0:07:57 > 0:08:00is the childlike nature of his character.
0:08:00 > 0:08:03In his golden period, really -
0:08:03 > 0:08:07he wrote from the mid-Edwardian era all the way through to the '50s -
0:08:07 > 0:08:10there is no mention, as far as I can remember,
0:08:10 > 0:08:13and I'm pretty sure I'm right, of the First World War
0:08:13 > 0:08:15in any of his books. Not a mention!
0:08:15 > 0:08:18And that's not to say that he hasn't got a fine eye and ear
0:08:18 > 0:08:22for the Zeitgeist, so you find lots of sort of references
0:08:22 > 0:08:26to contemporary intellectual trends in his writings,
0:08:26 > 0:08:30so he refers to the Freudian subconscious
0:08:30 > 0:08:33and he talks about Red propaganda and splitting the atom
0:08:33 > 0:08:37and all these sorts of things, but he tends to do it in an ironic way,
0:08:37 > 0:08:39to joke about it.
0:08:39 > 0:08:42He knew the way the world wagged, and he was not an innocent
0:08:42 > 0:08:45in the true sense.
0:08:45 > 0:08:48It's just, as far as writing was concerned,
0:08:48 > 0:08:50he just closed his mind off to all things political,
0:08:50 > 0:08:52all things unpleasant.
0:08:52 > 0:08:56It seems to me that he was keeping the true facts, as it were,
0:08:56 > 0:09:01about the world, at arm's length throughout his writing career.
0:09:01 > 0:09:03Um, but who could blame him for that?
0:09:03 > 0:09:08'Whether it was an escape from the real world or an encounter with it,
0:09:08 > 0:09:11'Wodehouse began a hugely formative period of his life
0:09:11 > 0:09:14'here in the South London suburbs in 1894.
0:09:14 > 0:09:17'He entered Dulwich College as a boarder,
0:09:17 > 0:09:20'starting what he'd later describe
0:09:20 > 0:09:23as "six years of unbroken bliss".'
0:09:25 > 0:09:26'Here in the Masters' Library,
0:09:26 > 0:09:30'which would have been mightily familiar to Wodehouse,
0:09:30 > 0:09:34'there's a chance to learn about the education he absorbed within these walls.'
0:09:34 > 0:09:37What would have been the curriculum of the school then?
0:09:37 > 0:09:41- What would it have left him with? - Wodehouse had no doubt
0:09:41 > 0:09:44that the ethos of the school was that a boy, a serious boy,
0:09:44 > 0:09:48should study classics, and a gentleman should study classics.
0:09:48 > 0:09:52And he said it was the best education a writer could have had.
0:09:52 > 0:09:54But they read a lot of English literature too.
0:09:54 > 0:09:59There are many embedded quotations, as you know, in Wodehouse, from English literature.
0:09:59 > 0:10:01If your little scheme works, Jeeves,
0:10:01 > 0:10:04and Rhoda gives Uncle George the heave-ho,
0:10:04 > 0:10:06- it'll do your pal a bit of good, eh? - Yes, sir.
0:10:06 > 0:10:10I fancy he will consider it a consummation devoutly to be wished.
0:10:10 > 0:10:14Rather well put, that, Jeeves! Your own?
0:10:14 > 0:10:16No, sir! The Bard of Avon.
0:10:17 > 0:10:21When the time came for Wodehouse to leave Dulwich,
0:10:21 > 0:10:23the imposing figure of the school's master
0:10:23 > 0:10:26passed judgement on his time there.
0:10:26 > 0:10:30He said that the boy Wodehouse was often forgetful.
0:10:30 > 0:10:33"He finds difficulties in the most simple things,
0:10:33 > 0:10:36and asks absurd questions,
0:10:36 > 0:10:39whereas he can understand the more difficult things."
0:10:39 > 0:10:42"He has the most distorted ideas about wit and humour."
0:10:42 > 0:10:45And he ended up by saying, "One's obliged to like him
0:10:45 > 0:10:47in spite of his vagaries."
0:10:47 > 0:10:51In the Great Hall of Dulwich College,
0:10:51 > 0:10:55the honours board bears the name Wodehouse, EA,
0:10:55 > 0:10:58marking the success of the author's brother Armine
0:10:58 > 0:11:00in gaining a place at Oxford.
0:11:00 > 0:11:04And of Wodehouse, PG, there's not a sign.
0:11:04 > 0:11:06His father's financial problems
0:11:06 > 0:11:10meant his hopes of going to university were dashed.
0:11:10 > 0:11:13Throughout his long, long career,
0:11:13 > 0:11:17Wodehouse almost never allowed real emotional pain
0:11:17 > 0:11:19to impinge on his fiction.
0:11:19 > 0:11:22But in this case, he transposed his own disappointment
0:11:22 > 0:11:26onto Mike Jackson, all-round good egg and cricketing hero
0:11:26 > 0:11:28of some of his early novels.
0:11:28 > 0:11:32"'Aren't I going up to Cambridge, Father?' stammered Mike."
0:11:32 > 0:11:36"'I'm afraid not, Mike. I won't go into details,
0:11:36 > 0:11:39but I've lost a very large sum of money since I saw you last -
0:11:39 > 0:11:43so large that we shall have to economise in every way.'"
0:11:43 > 0:11:47"'I'm afraid, too, that you will have to start earning your living.'"
0:11:47 > 0:11:50"'I know it's a terrible disappointment to you, old chap.'"
0:11:50 > 0:11:55"'Oh. That's...all right,' said Mike, thickly."
0:11:55 > 0:11:59"There seemed to be something sticking in his throat,
0:11:59 > 0:12:01preventing him from speaking."
0:12:01 > 0:12:03He'd obviously seen Oxford
0:12:03 > 0:12:08as a way out of this somewhat restrictive childhood
0:12:08 > 0:12:11and family life, and so I think he was very cast down.
0:12:11 > 0:12:14But actually, Oxford's loss was literature's gain.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18Do you think he would have been a writer at all if he'd gone to...
0:12:18 > 0:12:22Probably not. I think he would have become a civil servant or a judge.
0:12:22 > 0:12:25- Fate worse than death! - TERRY LAUGHS
0:12:27 > 0:12:31Instead of following his brother's path and studying Latin and Greek
0:12:31 > 0:12:33here in the city of the dreaming spires,
0:12:33 > 0:12:36Wodehouse was sent to the City of London,
0:12:36 > 0:12:37to begin his working life
0:12:37 > 0:12:40on the staff of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank.
0:12:40 > 0:12:43Well, I disliked it at first, of course,
0:12:43 > 0:12:48because all I could afford was a cup of coffee and roll of butter
0:12:48 > 0:12:52for lunch, which rather shook me to me to my foundations.
0:12:52 > 0:12:58But, er, it wasn't bad. When I got used to it, I liked it.
0:12:58 > 0:13:01Wodehouse lent his not-inconsiderable presence
0:13:01 > 0:13:04to the bank's rugby team, but he was late for work
0:13:04 > 0:13:06perhaps a little too often,
0:13:06 > 0:13:08and here at his old school
0:13:08 > 0:13:11there's evidence pointing to the young man's priorities.
0:13:11 > 0:13:15PG Wodehouse, like myself, went off and joined a bank.
0:13:15 > 0:13:19But while he was in the bank, he continued to write.
0:13:19 > 0:13:22Absolutely, and this notebook is the record
0:13:22 > 0:13:25of all that literary work that was going on
0:13:25 > 0:13:28in the evenings, weekends, or whenever he wasn't at the bank.
0:13:28 > 0:13:31He was writing stories, submitting them,
0:13:31 > 0:13:33and getting paid.
0:13:33 > 0:13:36£1, 11 and 6, I see here somewhere. It's the old money!
0:13:36 > 0:13:40- Exactly.- Ah, memories! - Then we get to September 1902.
0:13:40 > 0:13:42It's a marvellous month, where he notes,
0:13:42 > 0:13:47"Total for September, £16 and four shillings - record so far."
0:13:47 > 0:13:50- King's ransom.- It's extraordinary. So then he's able to make
0:13:50 > 0:13:53this monumental decision on September 9th,
0:13:53 > 0:13:56"having to choose between the 'Globe' versus the bank,
0:13:56 > 0:14:01and chucked the latter, and started on my wild lone as a freelance."
0:14:01 > 0:14:04- So he didn't need the day job any more.- Wonderful!
0:14:04 > 0:14:08'Wodehouse clearly had his shoulder to the journalistic wheel
0:14:08 > 0:14:10'in the years after he left school,
0:14:10 > 0:14:13'but he wasn't suited to every opportunity that came his way.'
0:14:13 > 0:14:17Wodehouse was actually an early Edwardian agony uncle.
0:14:17 > 0:14:20He was employed for a brief time by a journal
0:14:20 > 0:14:23called Tit-Bits. The owner was very proud of the fact
0:14:23 > 0:14:26that they had a problem page.
0:14:26 > 0:14:28In some ways it's a surprising find,
0:14:28 > 0:14:31but it's not surprising that Wodehouse couldn't handle
0:14:31 > 0:14:35an emotional problem page seriously. He couldn't take it seriously,
0:14:35 > 0:14:38and in fact he was "let go", as it were.
0:14:39 > 0:14:41Still, London in the early 20th century
0:14:41 > 0:14:44wasn't a bad place for a young writer to be.
0:14:44 > 0:14:47A rising, increasingly literate population
0:14:47 > 0:14:51meant that, with titles such as Punch and The Strand to the fore,
0:14:51 > 0:14:54this was the golden age of the magazine.
0:14:54 > 0:14:58Did he have to write to order, then? If you're writing for magazines
0:14:58 > 0:15:01or serials and things, it's to order, isn't it?
0:15:01 > 0:15:05Absolutely, and all his life he liked to get paid for what he did.
0:15:05 > 0:15:08He liked to deliver what you asked him to do,
0:15:08 > 0:15:11on time, to length, and get paid for it.
0:15:11 > 0:15:15- A real professional.- A real professional journalist/writer.
0:15:17 > 0:15:20In over 70 years as a published novelist,
0:15:20 > 0:15:22beginning when he was just 20,
0:15:22 > 0:15:27this professionalism - unfussy, unrelenting -
0:15:27 > 0:15:29dominated Wodehouse's life.
0:15:29 > 0:15:32One of the things I most love about Wodehouse
0:15:32 > 0:15:35was that he was so hardworking,
0:15:35 > 0:15:38and he belongs to that generation of writers -
0:15:38 > 0:15:42two writers he very much admired, Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh -
0:15:42 > 0:15:46the same generation where they just put their books out,
0:15:46 > 0:15:50one in the spring, one in the autumn, and they worked really, really hard.
0:15:50 > 0:15:52He was a supreme professional
0:15:52 > 0:15:55for whom the day was all about getting up,
0:15:55 > 0:15:58going and sitting in front of his typewriter,
0:15:58 > 0:16:02his Royal, the same typewriter he kept throughout his life,
0:16:02 > 0:16:06and typing out the words. He said, "I sit at my desk and curse a bit,"
0:16:06 > 0:16:10- when asked what his technique was. - It wasn't all that easy for him.
0:16:10 > 0:16:12One assumes, the way the books are written,
0:16:12 > 0:16:15that the flow would have come to him very easily,
0:16:15 > 0:16:19but he didn't sit around waiting for the muse to land.
0:16:19 > 0:16:23The Latin scholar in him would have said, "Ars celare artem est" -
0:16:23 > 0:16:26"Art is to conceal art", and he certainly concealed it.
0:16:26 > 0:16:29He was an artist, an important, very good artist.
0:16:29 > 0:16:32But he was also a professional writer,
0:16:32 > 0:16:34and he learned how to write,
0:16:34 > 0:16:36and he developed his craft deliberately,
0:16:36 > 0:16:39sitting down for long hours for years and years,
0:16:39 > 0:16:41until he could do it exquisitely.
0:16:41 > 0:16:43At his peak of productivity,
0:16:43 > 0:16:47Wodehouse wrote 8,000 words a day.
0:16:47 > 0:16:51But his work was never just produced. It was polished.
0:16:51 > 0:16:53I tell you what I love - I love revising.
0:16:53 > 0:16:58Getting the first stuff down is always hard,
0:16:58 > 0:17:02but once it's down, you can see what's wrong with it.
0:17:02 > 0:17:05'You can see that one page ought to be five pages earlier,
0:17:05 > 0:17:07'and that sort of thing.'
0:17:07 > 0:17:10Wodehouse had always wanted to pay his way as a writer.
0:17:10 > 0:17:14In 1914, aged 32, he'd taken on the additional responsibilities
0:17:14 > 0:17:17of a family man, when he married Ethel Wayman,
0:17:17 > 0:17:22and became a deeply devoted stepfather to her daughter Leonora,
0:17:22 > 0:17:25whom he would call "the queen of her species".
0:17:25 > 0:17:29His wife Ethel was quite the hostess, in their various homes
0:17:29 > 0:17:34in Long Island and in France, and he would tend to hide in his study,
0:17:34 > 0:17:36smoking his pipe and sipping his whisky,
0:17:36 > 0:17:39and probably reading back his day's work.
0:17:39 > 0:17:44The deal with Ethel, his wife, was that he made it and she spent it. That was the deal.
0:17:44 > 0:17:47Given that his wife enjoyed entertaining and gambling,
0:17:47 > 0:17:50you can see that Wodehouse needed to keep earning.
0:17:50 > 0:17:54But that doesn't begin to explain his devotion to his work.
0:17:54 > 0:17:58He didn't write to live. He wrote to exist.
0:17:59 > 0:18:03He was only interested in work,
0:18:03 > 0:18:06so if you came, and you knew his books,
0:18:06 > 0:18:08you knew him.
0:18:10 > 0:18:14His routine was, you get up, you work all morning,
0:18:14 > 0:18:17you have lunch, you go for a walk, you have a cocktail,
0:18:17 > 0:18:20you work some more, have a cup of tea, work some more, go to bed,
0:18:20 > 0:18:23listen to the radio, go to sleep, get up, work.
0:18:23 > 0:18:25It just goes on and on and on.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28He wrote because that's what he did.
0:18:29 > 0:18:34And... And his dedication, his fulfilment in writing,
0:18:34 > 0:18:37was his life.
0:18:39 > 0:18:42'The Clicking Of Cuthbert!
0:18:42 > 0:18:46'A rarely seen version of one of Wodehouse's famous golf stories,
0:18:46 > 0:18:49'and proof that the work of the master of dialogue
0:18:49 > 0:18:52'was in demand from the silent cinema.
0:18:52 > 0:18:55'Wodehouse was by now a major name in his own right.
0:18:55 > 0:18:58'Enduring characters such as Psmith
0:18:58 > 0:19:01'and the denizens of Blandings Castle
0:19:01 > 0:19:03'were already well established, along with a duo
0:19:03 > 0:19:06'Wodehouse described to a school friend as
0:19:06 > 0:19:09'"a bloke called Bertie Wooster and his valet".'
0:19:09 > 0:19:13Well, now, that came about... I was writing a short story
0:19:13 > 0:19:19where Bertie - he was called Reggie Pepper in those days...
0:19:20 > 0:19:25He and his friend got into an absolute fix,
0:19:25 > 0:19:29and it's impossible that either of them could find the solution to it.
0:19:29 > 0:19:34And it suddenly occurred to me, why shouldn't Reggie, Reggie Pepper,
0:19:34 > 0:19:39have a valet who...was omniscient?
0:19:39 > 0:19:43Wodehouse chronicled the adventures of the hapless Bertie Wooster
0:19:43 > 0:19:46and his rescue by the unflappable, infallible Jeeves
0:19:46 > 0:19:50for 60 years, and the characters remain the most familiar route
0:19:50 > 0:19:53into the author's world of comic fantasy.
0:19:53 > 0:19:58There is no greater lover of words, in my experience, than you.
0:19:58 > 0:20:02When did your particular love of Wodehouse start?
0:20:02 > 0:20:04I can date it exactly. It was my tenth birthday.
0:20:04 > 0:20:07I was given a copy of Very Good, Jeeves
0:20:07 > 0:20:10by a godmother, and I consumed it in an evening.
0:20:10 > 0:20:13And it was like falling in love, all that sense of,
0:20:13 > 0:20:17"I've been here before, I know this." Somehow it was right.
0:20:17 > 0:20:20The way the sentences fell was just made for me, and I knew it,
0:20:20 > 0:20:23and within a very short time I had a huge collection.
0:20:23 > 0:20:26I think it's you that said the plotting is fantastic.
0:20:26 > 0:20:28Obviously the characters are amazing,
0:20:28 > 0:20:31but it's the words. It's the language.
0:20:31 > 0:20:33That's right. It's particularly important
0:20:33 > 0:20:35when you come to a dramatisation,
0:20:35 > 0:20:38to look at this problem, if you like, with Wodehouse,
0:20:38 > 0:20:42that, like any writer, there are three strands -
0:20:42 > 0:20:45characterisation, storytelling, and the language that is used
0:20:45 > 0:20:49to convey it all. It is the language that rises above all.
0:20:49 > 0:20:53It is... No-one else wrote like that. I mean, he was a lord of language,
0:20:53 > 0:20:56and there are very few of these born every generation.
0:20:56 > 0:21:00How did you feel, yourself, to have to take on the role
0:21:00 > 0:21:05of Jeeves, and put the words on the screen, as it were?
0:21:05 > 0:21:07It... It was a heck of an ask.
0:21:07 > 0:21:11I mean, two things occurred to me when Brian Eastman, the producer,
0:21:11 > 0:21:14came to me and Hugh, and we both said afterwards,
0:21:14 > 0:21:18on the one hand, we can't possibly do this. It would be sacrilege.
0:21:18 > 0:21:22On the other hand, we can't possibly let anyone else do this!
0:21:22 > 0:21:26It was going to happen, and therefore we thought, well, gosh,
0:21:26 > 0:21:29we would kick ourselves forever if we didn't try.
0:21:29 > 0:21:33Among the grim regiment of my aunts, only Aunt Dahlia stands alone
0:21:33 > 0:21:35as a real sportsman. I mean, look at my aunt Agatha!
0:21:35 > 0:21:38- Indeed, sir. Yes.- And Aunt Julia!
0:21:38 > 0:21:41- Quite, sir.- And Aunt Charlotte!
0:21:41 > 0:21:44Ugh! She's the one who sent me that rather bitter postcard
0:21:44 > 0:21:48of Little Chilbury War Memorial when I refused to take her frightful child
0:21:48 > 0:21:50- to lunch on the way back to school. - Aunts are noted
0:21:50 > 0:21:54for strong opinions, sir. It's a distinguishing mark of the breed.
0:21:54 > 0:21:57It's a tradition. The servant-master comedy
0:21:57 > 0:21:59is a very old tradition. It goes back to Roman plays
0:21:59 > 0:22:03and through Ben Jonson and Commedia dell'Arte and so on.
0:22:03 > 0:22:05People have always found delightful
0:22:05 > 0:22:09that of the fool of an employer
0:22:09 > 0:22:14having rings run round him by his wiser employee.
0:22:14 > 0:22:16The thing that's so unique about Jeeves and Wooster
0:22:16 > 0:22:18is that it's told in the first person,
0:22:18 > 0:22:21so it's all through Bertie's voice,
0:22:21 > 0:22:24and Bertie's voice is one of the great voices in all literature.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27'And for me, the greatest voice of Bertie Wooster
0:22:27 > 0:22:30'was heard in a classic BBC radio series
0:22:30 > 0:22:32'starring Richard Briers.'
0:22:32 > 0:22:35"'Morning, Jeeves,' I said."
0:22:35 > 0:22:38"'Oh, good morning, sir,' said Jeeves."
0:22:38 > 0:22:42"He put the good old cup of tea softly on the table
0:22:42 > 0:22:45by my bed, and I took a refreshing sip."
0:22:45 > 0:22:48"Just right, as usual."
0:22:48 > 0:22:52"Not too hot, not too sweet, not too weak, not too strong,
0:22:52 > 0:22:57not too much milk, and not a drop spilled in the saucer."
0:22:57 > 0:23:00"A most amazing cove, Jeeves."
0:23:00 > 0:23:03"So dashed competent in every respect."
0:23:03 > 0:23:05"I've said it before, and I'll say it again."
0:23:05 > 0:23:09"I mean to say, take just one small instance."
0:23:09 > 0:23:13"Any other valet I've ever had used to barge into my room
0:23:13 > 0:23:15in the morning while I was still asleep,
0:23:15 > 0:23:18causing much misery."
0:23:18 > 0:23:20"But Jeeves seems to know when I'm awake
0:23:20 > 0:23:22by a sort of telepathy."
0:23:22 > 0:23:26"He always floats in with the cup
0:23:26 > 0:23:28exactly two minutes after I come to life."
0:23:28 > 0:23:33"Makes a deuce of a lot of difference to a fellow's day."
0:23:33 > 0:23:36- Wonderful words. - Marvellous, isn't it?
0:23:36 > 0:23:39Oh! But you took on the role of Bertie Wooster,
0:23:39 > 0:23:43and Stephen Fry has said, rightly, that one of the great voices
0:23:43 > 0:23:46in English literature was that of Bertie Wooster.
0:23:46 > 0:23:50- Did you think of him as somebody - fairly vacant mind...- Yes, yes!
0:23:50 > 0:23:54- ..but rapid tongue?- Yes. I always felt that he wasn't that thick,
0:23:54 > 0:23:57that he did his very best. He messed things up,
0:23:57 > 0:24:00but he did have a very good go, and was terrified of the aunts,
0:24:00 > 0:24:03of course. Lived in fear of the aunts.
0:24:03 > 0:24:07But I thought he was not quite brainless as one thinks.
0:24:07 > 0:24:10How many times was he engaged? About seven times?
0:24:10 > 0:24:13- Terrifying.- Only because he was afraid of the women.
0:24:13 > 0:24:16He couldn't say no. Extraordinary. Very charming about him.
0:24:16 > 0:24:20Now, I listened on the radio to The Purity Of The Turf,
0:24:20 > 0:24:26which is a really funny story about Bertie and Bingo
0:24:26 > 0:24:29trying to make a few quid on the side
0:24:29 > 0:24:34by backing a big fat choirboy, who can run like the wind,
0:24:34 > 0:24:37in, as it were, the school fete.
0:24:37 > 0:24:41Now, that, in fact, although it's hard to believe...
0:24:41 > 0:24:45- Yes.- ..is in cartoon form
0:24:45 > 0:24:47in a Japanese comic.
0:24:47 > 0:24:51- That's incredible! - It starts at the back, of course.
0:24:51 > 0:24:55And this is The Purity Of The Turf, as characterised by...
0:24:55 > 0:24:58- Now, that can only be Bertie.- Yes.
0:24:58 > 0:25:01- That's right.- And that's Jeeves.
0:25:01 > 0:25:04- With the umbrella. - And that's the fat choirboy...
0:25:04 > 0:25:06- RICHARD LAUGHS - Terribly fat, yes.
0:25:06 > 0:25:09..who they lost a lot of money on.
0:25:09 > 0:25:13- You can see how it's all drawn here. - Fascinating.
0:25:13 > 0:25:15- Isn't it amazing?- Really amazing.
0:25:15 > 0:25:19He was loved universally, wasn't he? Lovely stories.
0:25:19 > 0:25:23It doesn't matter that none of us have ever had a man's gentleman,
0:25:23 > 0:25:25a gentleman's gentleman, looking after us.
0:25:25 > 0:25:28It doesn't matter that we haven't got horrifying aunts.
0:25:28 > 0:25:32The fact that it isn't the real world is thrilling.
0:25:32 > 0:25:35To paraphrase his great admirer, Evelyn Waugh,
0:25:35 > 0:25:40Wodehouse's innocent characters are "still in Eden".
0:25:40 > 0:25:43They've never sunk their teeth into the forbidden fruit.
0:25:43 > 0:25:45But Wodehouse always insisted that Bertie Wooster
0:25:45 > 0:25:50owed something to the reality of life in his Edwardian youth.
0:25:50 > 0:25:55London was full of Berties in the old days.
0:25:55 > 0:25:58Those fellows were all more or less dependent on aunts
0:25:58 > 0:26:01and uncles and various people.
0:26:01 > 0:26:04They had their little allowances,
0:26:04 > 0:26:07and they didn't want to jeopardise them.
0:26:07 > 0:26:10It's curious to think, nowadays, of that life,
0:26:10 > 0:26:14but it really did exist at that time.
0:26:15 > 0:26:18'And here in London's West End,
0:26:18 > 0:26:20'I've joined Wodehouse scholar Norman Murphy
0:26:20 > 0:26:23'to hear how he tracked down the real locations
0:26:23 > 0:26:27'which feature in the world of Bertram Wilberforce Wooster.'
0:26:27 > 0:26:30And then I read the letter, when he said,
0:26:30 > 0:26:34"I always like using a real building, a real location."
0:26:34 > 0:26:35"It saves time and effort."
0:26:35 > 0:26:39- And Bertie Wooster's flat is right over there.- Really?
0:26:39 > 0:26:43- 15 Berkeley Street.- This is where Jeeves ministered to him?
0:26:43 > 0:26:47Ministered to him, and Wodehouse was here for three months that year,
0:26:47 > 0:26:50third flat, upstairs, exactly as Wodehouse tells us.
0:26:50 > 0:26:53- That's where it all began. - Show me more.- Round the corner.
0:26:53 > 0:26:55So, Norman, where are we now?
0:26:55 > 0:26:58In some respects, we're now in the home of Wodehouse's Mayfair,
0:26:58 > 0:27:02- because the white building there... - Yes.
0:27:02 > 0:27:04- Number 47... - The one with the pillars?
0:27:04 > 0:27:07- ..is the home of Mrs Dahlia Travers. - Oh, my word!- Aunt Dahlia.
0:27:07 > 0:27:11- And Aunt Dahlia he liked.- Indeed. - Aunt Agatha he was afraid of.
0:27:11 > 0:27:15Exactly. Aunt Agatha was based on his own aunt Mary Deane,
0:27:15 > 0:27:18who was the curse of his childhood, and Dahlia based on his aunt Louisa,
0:27:18 > 0:27:21- a lady he did like.- They were all based on his own aunts?
0:27:21 > 0:27:25- The big ones, yes. Two of them were. - And he was frightened of them?
0:27:25 > 0:27:29Remember, he had 20...15 uncles... He had 15 uncles and 20 aunts.
0:27:29 > 0:27:3120! Imagine!
0:27:31 > 0:27:34'Next we're off in search of the gentlemen's club
0:27:34 > 0:27:38'where Bertie Wooster and his pals whiled away so many days and nights.'
0:27:38 > 0:27:42The immortal site is here, the Drones Club.
0:27:42 > 0:27:45- Ah!- The real Drones Club. - This is it!
0:27:45 > 0:27:47- This is it.- The Drones.
0:27:47 > 0:27:50In 1919, a young officer who'd come back from the trenches
0:27:50 > 0:27:52said, "I'm now going to start a club,
0:27:52 > 0:27:55a young man's club." He called it Buck's Club,
0:27:55 > 0:27:58and in one story,
0:27:58 > 0:28:01Bingo Little told Bertie all about his love for Honoria Glossop
0:28:01 > 0:28:05in Buck's Club. Bertie wishes he would shut up,
0:28:05 > 0:28:07because the man behind the bar, McGarry, was listening
0:28:07 > 0:28:12with his ear flapping. Who was barman here in 1941? McGarry.
0:28:12 > 0:28:16So these stories are based on real locales?
0:28:16 > 0:28:20Places he knew, places his friends lived, places he knew very well.
0:28:20 > 0:28:24This was his milieu. This was Bertie Wooster's London.
0:28:24 > 0:28:26Bertie Wooster's Mayfair. We're here.
0:28:27 > 0:28:30Between its publication in 1923
0:28:30 > 0:28:32and the outbreak of war in 1939,
0:28:32 > 0:28:37The Inimitable Jeeves alone sold around three million copies,
0:28:37 > 0:28:41when the paperback was still in its infancy.
0:28:41 > 0:28:45So, you might ask, just what tricks was Wodehouse pulling off
0:28:45 > 0:28:48to reach such a vast readership? Well, the fact
0:28:48 > 0:28:51that he was able to pepper the Jeeves-and-Wooster stories
0:28:51 > 0:28:53with references to great literature
0:28:53 > 0:28:58alongside talk of "squaring the elbows" or "parting brass rags"
0:28:58 > 0:29:00provides a bit of a clue.
0:29:00 > 0:29:04As with HG Wells, or comic predecessors
0:29:04 > 0:29:08such as Jerome K Jerome, he found a way to appeal to the swelling ranks
0:29:08 > 0:29:13of bank clerks and office workers in Britain and beyond.
0:29:13 > 0:29:16And these are people who were using all kinds of local slang,
0:29:16 > 0:29:21and he was mixing this with the classical style,
0:29:21 > 0:29:23so it's a mixture of the high art and the low art,
0:29:23 > 0:29:27and he was somebody who managed to make a new style
0:29:27 > 0:29:31out of this mixture of popular and literary.
0:29:31 > 0:29:34So, when he writes about fate being like the rock in a stocking
0:29:34 > 0:29:37the rock in a stocking is both...
0:29:38 > 0:29:41..wonderfully poetic - I mean, as good as Chaucer -
0:29:41 > 0:29:44and...and...and also...
0:29:44 > 0:29:46um, incredibly funny,
0:29:46 > 0:29:50because it both...it's both banal
0:29:50 > 0:29:53at the same time as being...
0:29:53 > 0:29:56as being, er...extraordinarily profound.
0:29:56 > 0:29:58He's a very, very good writer of sentences.
0:29:58 > 0:30:01I mean, when I read Wodehouse as a kid,
0:30:01 > 0:30:04you read them for the plots and what happened in them.
0:30:04 > 0:30:08As you get older, and you take writing more seriously, as I do,
0:30:08 > 0:30:11when I read those sentences, I think that they are...immaculate,
0:30:11 > 0:30:15that it's very, very difficult to write a sentence as good as that.
0:30:15 > 0:30:18And not only that, to write another one and put it next to it,
0:30:18 > 0:30:20and then another one, and a dialogue.
0:30:20 > 0:30:25I mean, it's fantastically high-quality writing.
0:30:25 > 0:30:27You read it not for the plot, which you can remember,
0:30:27 > 0:30:30but for the style, the similes, the metaphors,
0:30:30 > 0:30:33the gloriously surreal metaphors.
0:30:33 > 0:30:37- Uncle Fred In Springtime?- It's called Uncle Fred In The Springtime.
0:30:37 > 0:30:41There are many Wodehouse characters who occur again and again,
0:30:41 > 0:30:44and Uncle Fred is one of them, Lord Ickenham.
0:30:44 > 0:30:49He's a splendid figure, and a complete disgrace of an old man,
0:30:49 > 0:30:54and Pongo, his nephew, is very scared of his aunt, Lady Constance,
0:30:54 > 0:30:57and, er... HE CHUCKLES
0:30:57 > 0:30:59..and this is what Ickenham says.
0:30:59 > 0:31:03He says, "'Don't blame me if it turns out that that's the wrong thing
0:31:03 > 0:31:06and Lady Constance takes her lorgnette to you.'"
0:31:06 > 0:31:10"'God bless my soul, though - you can't compare the lorgnettes of today
0:31:10 > 0:31:13with the ones I used to know as a boy.'"
0:31:13 > 0:31:15"'I remember walking one day in Grosvenor Square
0:31:15 > 0:31:18with my aunt Brenda and her pug dog Jabberwocky,
0:31:18 > 0:31:22and a policeman came up and said that the latter ought to be wearing a muzzle.'"
0:31:22 > 0:31:25"'My aunt made no verbal reply.'"
0:31:25 > 0:31:28"'She merely whipped her lorgnette from its holster
0:31:28 > 0:31:31and looked at the man, who gave one choking gasp
0:31:31 > 0:31:34and fell back against the railings, without a mark on him,
0:31:34 > 0:31:37but with an awful look of horror in his staring eyes,
0:31:37 > 0:31:40as if he had seen some dreadful sight.'"
0:31:40 > 0:31:43"'A doctor was sent for, and they managed to bring him round,
0:31:43 > 0:31:46but he was never the same again. He had to leave the Force,
0:31:46 > 0:31:49and eventually drifted into the grocery business.'"
0:31:49 > 0:31:52"'And that is how Sir Thomas Lipton got his start.'"
0:31:52 > 0:31:55No mark on him, as if he had seen some dreadful sight.
0:31:55 > 0:31:57I mean, that's the language of Conan Doyle,
0:31:57 > 0:32:00and it's about an aunt bringing out a lorgnette.
0:32:00 > 0:32:03I think Wodehouse is the century's greatest comic novelist
0:32:03 > 0:32:06surely on the strength of his language.
0:32:06 > 0:32:11He managed to use comedy as almost a language distinct unto itself,
0:32:11 > 0:32:15a language into which anything could be translated.
0:32:15 > 0:32:18You want it to go slowly because the language is so funny
0:32:18 > 0:32:22and enjoyable to read - on the other hand, the sort of helter-skelter pace
0:32:22 > 0:32:26that's going to propel you from page one right down to the end.
0:32:26 > 0:32:28When I say it's a bit like pornography,
0:32:28 > 0:32:32it does.... After a while, you can become sated by it.
0:32:32 > 0:32:34You start to read too much Wodehouse
0:32:34 > 0:32:37and it's not just you exhaust your laughter muscles,
0:32:37 > 0:32:41but you start to say, "Yeah, yeah, this is brilliant comedy,
0:32:41 > 0:32:46but I'm not sure I could go on reading it all night,
0:32:46 > 0:32:51all day tomorrow," because it's got this wonderful artificiality about it.
0:32:53 > 0:32:57Although capturing such wonderful artificiality is no cakewalk,
0:32:57 > 0:33:01Wodehouse Playhouse, a highly popular series of the mid-'70s,
0:33:01 > 0:33:04remains a relatively rare example
0:33:04 > 0:33:07of a successful Wodehouse adaptation.
0:33:07 > 0:33:10Miss Minna Nordstrom!
0:33:10 > 0:33:12And after Tim Rice visited the Wodehouse home
0:33:12 > 0:33:16a few years earlier, to discuss a planned Jeeves musical,
0:33:16 > 0:33:20he realised the task was not but the work of a moment.
0:33:20 > 0:33:23All I felt I was doing was making the great Wodehouse less funny,
0:33:23 > 0:33:26and I kept thinking, "This isn't..."
0:33:26 > 0:33:30"All I'm doing is unimproving him."
0:33:30 > 0:33:32And in the end I pulled out,
0:33:32 > 0:33:36because there's nothing really that a musical version can add to it,
0:33:36 > 0:33:40I don't think, can add to the genius of PG.
0:33:40 > 0:33:44As Punch magazine had it way back when,
0:33:44 > 0:33:46criticising Wodehouse's work
0:33:46 > 0:33:48is "like taking a spade to a souffle".
0:33:48 > 0:33:53But the novels and short stories that just trip off the page to read
0:33:53 > 0:33:56are the result, of course, of almost ceaseless effort,
0:33:56 > 0:34:01which in turn points to another curiosity about his work.
0:34:01 > 0:34:03For him, life was about work,
0:34:03 > 0:34:08but he wrote about people who never did any work at all.
0:34:08 > 0:34:13And I've always found that the most intriguing paradox
0:34:13 > 0:34:14about PG Wodehouse.
0:34:14 > 0:34:18It can't be that Wodehouse wanted to join the ranks of the idle rich.
0:34:18 > 0:34:23His success made him very wealthy, but idle?
0:34:23 > 0:34:25He'd sooner have run a mile in tight shoes.
0:34:25 > 0:34:30So was he just fixated on the upper classes? Was George Orwell,
0:34:30 > 0:34:33who in many respects understood Wodehouse very well,
0:34:33 > 0:34:39right to claim that his work betrays an "old-fashioned snobbishness"?
0:34:39 > 0:34:42I think the answer is no, and I think no for two reasons,
0:34:42 > 0:34:45the first of which is, if we actually look at the plots,
0:34:45 > 0:34:48who's in charge, we can see very much
0:34:48 > 0:34:52that Jeeves is in charge of not only Bertie's wardrobe
0:34:52 > 0:34:55but his love life and his entire future.
0:34:55 > 0:34:59So I think that what you could say about Wodehouse is
0:34:59 > 0:35:03that the upper classes are mostly twits.
0:35:03 > 0:35:06They are... The benefit of a good education has been lost
0:35:06 > 0:35:10on almost all of them. The only person who knows his Shakespeare
0:35:10 > 0:35:15and his Pope is Jeeves, so that there are subtle ways where that idea
0:35:15 > 0:35:18that the upper class equals good
0:35:18 > 0:35:23and the servant class equals put-upon is subverted all the way through.
0:35:23 > 0:35:26The second reason I'd say no is class,
0:35:26 > 0:35:29and the various ranks of class, are really, for Wodehouse,
0:35:29 > 0:35:31they're just a plot device, a system.
0:35:31 > 0:35:34Wodehouse's novels revolve around things being out of place.
0:35:34 > 0:35:37His job, as a writer, is to play with these things
0:35:37 > 0:35:41being out of place, and to put them back into their place,
0:35:41 > 0:35:44and class provides one of the ways in which he can do that.
0:35:44 > 0:35:47Televised here for the first time in 55 years,
0:35:47 > 0:35:50this is the BBC version of perhaps the most famous
0:35:50 > 0:35:53of Wodehouse's short stories, set at Blandings Castle.
0:35:53 > 0:35:56"McAllister," I shall say, "I've had enough of your tantrums."
0:35:56 > 0:36:00"Those flowers are mine, and I shall pick as many as I want."
0:36:00 > 0:36:05I shall look him straight in the eye, and no nonsense! Yes, dash it!
0:36:05 > 0:36:07Leave my flowers alone!
0:36:07 > 0:36:10A typical Wodehouse aristocrat, Lord Emsworth,
0:36:10 > 0:36:13is not an oppressor of the masses, but an amiable eccentric
0:36:13 > 0:36:17who is terrified of McAllister, his grumpy Scottish gardener.
0:36:17 > 0:36:19- Well, Your Lordship?- Agh!
0:36:19 > 0:36:24Er, w-w-well, McAllister, what appears to be the matter?
0:36:24 > 0:36:26Your Lordship!
0:36:26 > 0:36:29The topics that he writes about are very similar to those of Wilde -
0:36:29 > 0:36:34country houses, gentlemen-about-town, aunts -
0:36:34 > 0:36:37and he uses that sort of aphoristic wit.
0:36:37 > 0:36:40But Wilde really was revolutionary.
0:36:40 > 0:36:45Wilde really did turn the world, and, indeed, his own world, upside down.
0:36:45 > 0:36:47Um...
0:36:47 > 0:36:51But Wodehouse was, of course, conservative.
0:36:51 > 0:36:56Despite the fact that revolution is raging around Wodehouse,
0:36:56 > 0:36:59one never gets the feeling that he really thinks
0:36:59 > 0:37:02that Jeeves, who is clearly much more intelligent than Bertie,
0:37:02 > 0:37:05should actually seize economic power.
0:37:05 > 0:37:10There's never a sense that he's interested in that kind of change.
0:37:10 > 0:37:14No chance of Wodehouse having Jeeves storming the Winter Palace,
0:37:14 > 0:37:18particularly when Mrs Wodehouse liked to live in some style,
0:37:18 > 0:37:20with a staff of 11,
0:37:20 > 0:37:22at this London address, in the '20s.
0:37:22 > 0:37:25But does that mean that Wodehouse was a snob?
0:37:25 > 0:37:28He married Ethel. Ethel was actually a chorus girl.
0:37:28 > 0:37:31His best friend was a secretary.
0:37:31 > 0:37:34He had a long correspondence with a housekeeper married to a postman.
0:37:34 > 0:37:39For Wodehouse, it didn't matter what you did for a living. It mattered that you did it well.
0:37:39 > 0:37:43He tended to write about the aristocracy and the landed gentry
0:37:43 > 0:37:46and young men-about town at Drones Club
0:37:46 > 0:37:49because he found them funny, and we still find them funny.
0:37:49 > 0:37:53And if Wodehouse was obsessed with class,
0:37:53 > 0:37:55how is it that he had a longstanding love affair
0:37:55 > 0:37:59with the classless, restless energy of New York City,
0:37:59 > 0:38:02which began when he was still making his way?
0:38:02 > 0:38:06'I managed to sell two short stories in the first day,
0:38:06 > 0:38:11'one for 300 and one for 200, which, of course, was wealth.'
0:38:11 > 0:38:17So I think that was the first key that drew him to America,
0:38:17 > 0:38:19and then soon after that came the musicals,
0:38:19 > 0:38:24and obviously very quickly he was the man for lyrics.
0:38:24 > 0:38:26For almost 20 years, Wodehouse the lyricist
0:38:26 > 0:38:30was a major, enduring figure in Broadway musicals.
0:38:30 > 0:38:35In 1917, he had five shows running at once.
0:38:35 > 0:38:38And all the while, he was commanding top dollar
0:38:38 > 0:38:40in the United States magazine market,
0:38:40 > 0:38:43where authors made their name and their money.
0:38:43 > 0:38:46He was writing, for a mammoth American audience,
0:38:46 > 0:38:51an image of what they would like Britain, England, to be like.
0:38:51 > 0:38:55He developed something some contemporary writers have developed,
0:38:55 > 0:38:57which is, you sell the story in England,
0:38:57 > 0:38:59and you sell the story all over again in America,
0:38:59 > 0:39:03so he sells England to America, and America to England.
0:39:03 > 0:39:06So no surprise that, when talking pictures arrived,
0:39:06 > 0:39:08Hollywood came calling for PG Wodehouse,
0:39:08 > 0:39:11leading light on Broadway, world-famous author.
0:39:11 > 0:39:15As he said himself, "It was an era when only a man
0:39:15 > 0:39:17of exceptional ability and determination
0:39:17 > 0:39:22could keep from getting signed up by a studio in some capacity or other."
0:39:22 > 0:39:27When he presented himself at the studio, he didn't know what he was going to do.
0:39:27 > 0:39:30He hadn't been brought with a specific project in mind,
0:39:30 > 0:39:32so he said, "What is it you want me to do?"
0:39:32 > 0:39:39And very rapidly discovered that he kind of writing
0:39:39 > 0:39:43he was expected to do was not the writing that he did.
0:39:44 > 0:39:47This 1937 musical, starring Fred Astaire,
0:39:47 > 0:39:49is one of the few substantial results
0:39:49 > 0:39:52of Wodehouse's association with Hollywood,
0:39:52 > 0:39:54a deeply frustrating experience
0:39:54 > 0:39:57which inspired him to turn both barrels
0:39:57 > 0:39:59on the Dream Factory.
0:39:59 > 0:40:02Seven short stories and two novels.
0:40:02 > 0:40:05This is real satire, with a certain amount of anger,
0:40:05 > 0:40:09and this, in a way, was his writer's revenge
0:40:09 > 0:40:12on the people in Hollywood who'd made a monkey out of him.
0:40:12 > 0:40:16It is not easy to explain to the lay mind
0:40:16 > 0:40:18the extremely intricate ramification of the personnel
0:40:18 > 0:40:21of a Hollywood motion-picture organisation.
0:40:21 > 0:40:24A Nodder is something like a Yes-Man,
0:40:24 > 0:40:27only lower in the social scale. A Yes-Man's duty
0:40:27 > 0:40:30is to attend conferences and say "Yes."
0:40:30 > 0:40:34A Nodder's, as the name implies, is to nod.
0:40:34 > 0:40:37The chief executive throws out some statement of opinion.
0:40:37 > 0:40:40This is the cue for the senior Yes-Man to say yes.
0:40:40 > 0:40:43Only when all the Yes-Men have yessed
0:40:43 > 0:40:45do the Nodders begin to function.
0:40:45 > 0:40:47They nod.
0:40:47 > 0:40:50Decades of success in Britain and America
0:40:50 > 0:40:53brought Wodehouse considerable wealth,
0:40:53 > 0:40:56but not without complications. To simplify his tax affairs,
0:40:56 > 0:41:00from the mid-1930s, he, Ethel, and their Pekinese
0:41:00 > 0:41:05relocated to Northern France. In these settled surroundings,
0:41:05 > 0:41:07he produced some of his very best work,
0:41:07 > 0:41:10including a brilliant Jeeves-and-Wooster novel
0:41:10 > 0:41:12containing uncharacteristic references
0:41:12 > 0:41:14to contemporary politics.
0:41:14 > 0:41:18No-one ever wrote a better description of the stupidity of Fascism
0:41:18 > 0:41:20than Wodehouse in The Code Of The Woosters.
0:41:20 > 0:41:25Wodehouse satirises Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirt movement
0:41:25 > 0:41:29by having Bertie Wooster launch a withering verbal tirade
0:41:29 > 0:41:33against Roderick Spode, would-be Fascist dictator
0:41:33 > 0:41:35and leader of the Black Shorts.
0:41:35 > 0:41:39The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded
0:41:39 > 0:41:43in inducing a handful of halfwits to disfigure the London scene
0:41:43 > 0:41:46by going about in black shorts, you think you're someone.
0:41:46 > 0:41:48You hear them shouting "Heil Spode",
0:41:48 > 0:41:50and you imagine it is the voice of the people.
0:41:50 > 0:41:54That is where you make your bloomer. What the voice of the people is saying is,
0:41:54 > 0:41:58"Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags!"
0:41:58 > 0:42:01"Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?"
0:42:03 > 0:42:07Encaenia, an annual ceremony steeped in tradition and academic prestige,
0:42:07 > 0:42:10when Oxford University recognises the achievements
0:42:10 > 0:42:13of a handful of distinguished international figures.
0:42:13 > 0:42:17And at the 1939 ceremony, to his great surprise,
0:42:17 > 0:42:22Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was awarded an honorary doctorate
0:42:22 > 0:42:26by the university where he had hoped to study 40 years earlier.
0:42:26 > 0:42:30If you see the photographs of Wodehouse getting his degree,
0:42:30 > 0:42:34he already looks quite senior. He's all but 60.
0:42:34 > 0:42:38So he had by then been...
0:42:40 > 0:42:44..one of a handful of the most famous writers,
0:42:44 > 0:42:47and writers for the theatre and the musical theatre,
0:42:47 > 0:42:51in the world. I don't suppose he was matched. Who could match him?
0:42:51 > 0:42:56Publishing some of his finest work, honoured by academia,
0:42:56 > 0:43:01in the summer of 1939, Wodehouse was at the peak of his reputation.
0:43:01 > 0:43:04A couple of months after a day of acclaim at Oxford,
0:43:04 > 0:43:07he made a flying visit across the Channel from his French home,
0:43:07 > 0:43:10coming here to Dulwich College to watch a cricket match.
0:43:10 > 0:43:14'It was the last time he'd ever set foot on British soil.'
0:43:24 > 0:43:27Wodehouse was not alone amongst expatriates in France
0:43:27 > 0:43:31during that period to think that he didn't have anything to worry about,
0:43:31 > 0:43:35and no-one expected France to fall in six weeks.
0:43:35 > 0:43:39This was surprising, shall we say.
0:43:39 > 0:43:43The road to the radio broadcasts which were to lead to accusations of treachery
0:43:43 > 0:43:45and dog Wodehouse for the rest of his life
0:43:45 > 0:43:49took him from arrest in Northern France deep into the Reich.
0:43:49 > 0:43:53As an enemy alien under 60, he was sent to an internment camp,
0:43:53 > 0:43:55but all the while, he continued to write.
0:43:55 > 0:44:00I used to write by hand, very laboriously,
0:44:00 > 0:44:03in a room with about 50 people playing ping pong
0:44:03 > 0:44:07and singing and so on. I managed to get it done, though.
0:44:07 > 0:44:11How did the Germans persuade him that it was a good idea
0:44:11 > 0:44:14to make broadcasts to America?
0:44:14 > 0:44:17It's a painful episode, and it's the episode in his life
0:44:17 > 0:44:19which sadly will never go away,
0:44:19 > 0:44:23because it's the one thing that people remember about him,
0:44:23 > 0:44:26because it was so dramatic. Basically he was in this camp
0:44:26 > 0:44:28in Lower Silesia - sorry, in Upper Silesia.
0:44:28 > 0:44:32As he said, "If this is Upper Silesia, what must Lower Silesia be like?"
0:44:32 > 0:44:36And his books, as you know, are there to cheer people up.
0:44:36 > 0:44:42And he thought, I think with commendable stoicism and sang-froid,
0:44:42 > 0:44:45that it was a good idea to cheer up the members of the camp,
0:44:45 > 0:44:50and he wrote comic pieces for the entertainment of the prisoners,
0:44:50 > 0:44:52the internees.
0:44:52 > 0:44:55And the Lagerfuhrer, the controller of the camp,
0:44:55 > 0:44:58spotted this.
0:44:58 > 0:45:00I think the Germans saw a lot of publicity potential
0:45:00 > 0:45:03in Wodehouse in 1940, '41.
0:45:03 > 0:45:05This was a famous English writer,
0:45:05 > 0:45:09and the real idea was to keep America out of the war.
0:45:09 > 0:45:14In the summer of 1941, Wodehouse was released from internment
0:45:14 > 0:45:17and sent to Berlin. Here he ran into an old acquaintance from Hollywood,
0:45:17 > 0:45:20now working for the German foreign office,
0:45:20 > 0:45:23who suggested he deliver some radio talks to the United States,
0:45:23 > 0:45:27ostensibly to reassure his American fans of his wellbeing.
0:45:27 > 0:45:30And Wodehouse thought this would be a jolly thing to do,
0:45:30 > 0:45:32which was unbelievably foolish,
0:45:32 > 0:45:35not because it was a stupid thing to do
0:45:35 > 0:45:38but because he had not taken the temperature back home.
0:45:38 > 0:45:43He hadn't been in England for some time. He didn't know what it was like in Britain during the war.
0:45:43 > 0:45:47At this time, the full intensity of the Luftwaffe's blitz on Britain was just abating.
0:45:47 > 0:45:50Meanwhile, the rapid advance into the Soviet Union,
0:45:50 > 0:45:52an invasion which had begun less than a week
0:45:52 > 0:45:57before Wodehouse's first broadcast, threatened the prospect of German victory in the East.
0:45:57 > 0:46:01If you look at the talks, what he actually wrote and spoke,
0:46:01 > 0:46:05they're harmless. They are absolutely classic Wodehouse comic pieces -
0:46:05 > 0:46:09the problem being that, if you're broadcasting them from Germany
0:46:09 > 0:46:12in 1941, they become something completely different.
0:46:12 > 0:46:15"As a matter of fact, all through my period of internment,
0:46:15 > 0:46:18I noticed this tendency on the part of the Germans
0:46:18 > 0:46:21to start their little expeditions off with a whoop and a rush,
0:46:21 > 0:46:25and then sort of lose interest. It reminded me of Hollywood."
0:46:25 > 0:46:27You know, it's extraordinary.
0:46:27 > 0:46:32Wodehouse compares being carted around by the Germans
0:46:32 > 0:46:34and waiting eight hours for a train to leave
0:46:34 > 0:46:37to working for a Hollywood studio.
0:46:37 > 0:46:39Funny now,
0:46:39 > 0:46:45but he plainly failed to grasp the seriousness of his
0:46:45 > 0:46:47or his country's situation.
0:46:47 > 0:46:50The very fact that the broadcasts are very sarcastic
0:46:50 > 0:46:53at the expense of the Germans - that all counted for nothing.
0:46:53 > 0:46:56He thought he had been a stiff-upper-lipped Englishman
0:46:56 > 0:46:59in times of fear and war,
0:46:59 > 0:47:03and he found he was considered someone who'd sold the pass.
0:47:03 > 0:47:06- So the reaction in Britain was - - Was hysterical.
0:47:06 > 0:47:10The tabloids went bananas, and he was denounced as a traitor
0:47:10 > 0:47:12and as a fellow traveller, a stooge...
0:47:12 > 0:47:16You think about the worst things you could say about somebody, they said it.
0:47:16 > 0:47:18Wodehouse was attacked in Parliament too,
0:47:18 > 0:47:22but discovering the reaction of his beloved old school
0:47:22 > 0:47:26was among his major concerns when he fell into Allied custody in 1944.
0:47:26 > 0:47:30He was right to worry, and they did take a very dim view of it,
0:47:30 > 0:47:32and they cut him off completely,
0:47:32 > 0:47:37and it was said that if a boy was seen reading a Wodehouse novel,
0:47:37 > 0:47:39he could be caned.
0:47:39 > 0:47:41I mean, he was that vilified.
0:47:41 > 0:47:45Would he have faced official action? Would he have been called a traitor?
0:47:45 > 0:47:48- Would he stand trial? - This is one of the cruel things
0:47:48 > 0:47:52about what happened to him. When he was in Paris in 1944,
0:47:52 > 0:47:55he was interrogated by a judge,
0:47:55 > 0:47:58and he was given a pretty thorough going over,
0:47:58 > 0:48:01and they concluded afterwards that there was no case to answer,
0:48:01 > 0:48:04and that's it. But they never told him.
0:48:04 > 0:48:09There are those who argue that a man as intelligent as PG Wodehouse
0:48:09 > 0:48:12deserves criticism for his wartime conduct -
0:48:12 > 0:48:15that he surely must have known what the Nazis were about,
0:48:15 > 0:48:18and if he didn't, he should have done.
0:48:18 > 0:48:22Well, he was certainly an intelligent, educated man,
0:48:22 > 0:48:26but he wasn't the first or the last of those to make a mistake.
0:48:26 > 0:48:29He was someone who always assumed the best in others,
0:48:29 > 0:48:34who thought he was displaying a stoical disregard for hardship,
0:48:34 > 0:48:36but completely misread his times.
0:48:36 > 0:48:40Does that mean that the charges levelled at him hold water?
0:48:40 > 0:48:42Not in my book.
0:48:42 > 0:48:46Was he harshly treated by the British Establishment?
0:48:46 > 0:48:48Absolutely.
0:48:48 > 0:48:53Do you think that Plum was bitter about what had happened to him,
0:48:53 > 0:48:55about the attitude of certain people in England
0:48:55 > 0:48:59to what he had done while in Germany?
0:48:59 > 0:49:04No. He was not a man who felt bitterness
0:49:04 > 0:49:06in any circumstances.
0:49:06 > 0:49:11What he was, he was deeply wounded by the attitude that had been taken
0:49:11 > 0:49:15by quite a number in this country immediately after the war to him.
0:49:15 > 0:49:18He couldn't face the hullaballoo, coming back.
0:49:18 > 0:49:23I know I made an ass of myself and had to pay for it,
0:49:23 > 0:49:27but... Oh, no, I don't feel any resentment whatever.
0:49:27 > 0:49:32Feeling, understandably, unable to return to England,
0:49:32 > 0:49:35Wodehouse and Ethel settled in Long Island
0:49:35 > 0:49:37outside New York City in the 1950s.
0:49:37 > 0:49:40Here, surrounded by books,
0:49:40 > 0:49:43he settled into the predictable lifestyle he enjoyed,
0:49:43 > 0:49:47including the exercise regimen, his daily dozen,
0:49:47 > 0:49:51which he followed without fail for over 50 years.
0:49:51 > 0:49:55And, just as his daily life followed a familiar path,
0:49:55 > 0:49:58so too did his writing.
0:49:58 > 0:50:00The post-war years brought rock 'n' roll,
0:50:00 > 0:50:03the phenomenon of the teenager, the revolution in attitudes
0:50:03 > 0:50:06towards sex. But one thing that didn't change a bit
0:50:06 > 0:50:09was what Wodehouse called "my stuff".
0:50:09 > 0:50:12He wanted the world to remain the same.
0:50:12 > 0:50:15It was always the same. And not only did he want that
0:50:15 > 0:50:18but he kept it the same by writing it the same forever.
0:50:18 > 0:50:21He himself said, "I'm a bad case of arrested development."
0:50:21 > 0:50:26He never... He was 21 all his life, creatively.
0:50:26 > 0:50:29You never met Wodehouse any more than I did, to my great regret.
0:50:29 > 0:50:34But what do you think, the fact that he wrote about the same people
0:50:34 > 0:50:38- in the same kind of situations... - Yes.- What does that say about him
0:50:38 > 0:50:42- as a person?- I suppose you would say, pretty narrow a writer.
0:50:42 > 0:50:48And he was obviously a comic writer. That's what he really wanted to do,
0:50:48 > 0:50:53and he certainly didn't get in touch with Ibsen anywhere at all.
0:50:53 > 0:50:54HE LAUGHS
0:50:54 > 0:50:58It was just really there to amuse and make an immense fortune.
0:50:58 > 0:51:01He was a writer who wanted to make money.
0:51:01 > 0:51:04He said that very clearly from very early on.
0:51:04 > 0:51:08And he was incredibly successful at doing that,
0:51:08 > 0:51:12and I think he found a formula for making money and pursued that.
0:51:12 > 0:51:15It's very important, and true of all really great writers,
0:51:15 > 0:51:17that they understand their limitations.
0:51:17 > 0:51:21He understood his, and he did what he did as well as he possibly could all his life.
0:51:21 > 0:51:24If you have stories that you want to tell,
0:51:24 > 0:51:27and if you feel affectionate toward your characters,
0:51:27 > 0:51:30and you've still got stories that you have for them,
0:51:30 > 0:51:33that you're dreaming up for them, why would you change?
0:51:33 > 0:51:35We don't want to see Jeeves in his dotage.
0:51:35 > 0:51:38He understood exactly the age those characters belonged at,
0:51:38 > 0:51:41and he kept them there for decades.
0:51:41 > 0:51:44Nonetheless, the fact that by the late 1960s
0:51:44 > 0:51:48he'd been writing about the same characters for decade after decade
0:51:48 > 0:51:51did present some problems.
0:51:51 > 0:51:54Because in his head, all day every day,
0:51:54 > 0:51:57he was thinking about his plot,
0:51:57 > 0:51:59and, at the very end of his life,
0:51:59 > 0:52:03he said, "This is difficult. I settle down to write a book,
0:52:03 > 0:52:08and the hardest question is, have I written this book before?"
0:52:08 > 0:52:12"And I have no means, other than reading them all, to be sure."
0:52:12 > 0:52:16In 1968, a year of protest around the world,
0:52:16 > 0:52:20Christopher MacLehose became Wodehouse's editor
0:52:20 > 0:52:22at his London publishing house.
0:52:22 > 0:52:24Although he was the most...
0:52:24 > 0:52:28I mean, the iconic...comic writer in the world,
0:52:28 > 0:52:32he was only, as I remember, selling something like
0:52:32 > 0:52:3515,000 or 20,000 hardback books. I mean, that's not a great many.
0:52:35 > 0:52:37And this puzzled him.
0:52:37 > 0:52:41"Is it true," he would say, that sex and money
0:52:41 > 0:52:45were the only things that people wanted to read about in books?
0:52:45 > 0:52:47"I can't do that sort of thing," he said.
0:52:47 > 0:52:51Wodehouse's work appeared in the magazines
0:52:51 > 0:52:54which signified changing times, but for the eternal innocent,
0:52:54 > 0:52:56sex remained out of bounds.
0:52:56 > 0:53:01In all the Wodehouse work, beds are things you hide something under
0:53:01 > 0:53:04or you hide under yourself. They have no other use.
0:53:04 > 0:53:06Or you're woken up with your morning tea by your man.
0:53:06 > 0:53:09They have no other place in human life.
0:53:09 > 0:53:13Of course, when I started writing, sex was absolutely taboo.
0:53:13 > 0:53:15You couldn't even hint at it.
0:53:15 > 0:53:18I suppose one got set in one's ways.
0:53:18 > 0:53:20Certainly he wasn't going to stop writing,
0:53:20 > 0:53:24and he certainly wasn't going to change the way he was writing.
0:53:24 > 0:53:27But I think he felt remote
0:53:27 > 0:53:31from where what you would call the market was,
0:53:31 > 0:53:35and that was one of the reasons he didn't ever come back to England.
0:53:35 > 0:53:39He honestly felt that, if he had arrived in Southampton -
0:53:39 > 0:53:41he would've surely come by sea -
0:53:41 > 0:53:43that nobody would have come out to meet him.
0:53:43 > 0:53:45I think the truth is quite otherwise.
0:53:45 > 0:53:49I think there would've been bunting, a vast crowd of people,
0:53:49 > 0:53:52just to set eyes on him, touch his sleeve.
0:53:52 > 0:53:57Would you say his life was enormously happy in America?
0:53:57 > 0:54:00He cut himself off, I think, from a lot of the realities of life.
0:54:00 > 0:54:05It's an understatement - he was desperately sad not to come back
0:54:05 > 0:54:07to this country.
0:54:07 > 0:54:11Did he miss England? Did he ask you about how things were?
0:54:11 > 0:54:14I think there were three things he wanted above all else -
0:54:14 > 0:54:17to see rural England...
0:54:17 > 0:54:21One was to, I think, get back to Dulwich,
0:54:21 > 0:54:25just go to Dulwich and see it, walk round it and talk,
0:54:25 > 0:54:29and go to a test match, a cricket test match.
0:54:29 > 0:54:31Although past his 90th birthday,
0:54:31 > 0:54:35Wodehouse still talked of returning to England.
0:54:35 > 0:54:39I don't know if I'd find it very altered. I suppose I would.
0:54:39 > 0:54:44After all, 30... How long is it? 30 years, isn't it? Long time.
0:54:44 > 0:54:47'In the meantime he carried on writing,
0:54:47 > 0:54:50'as he always had, amid signs that an old error of judgement
0:54:50 > 0:54:53'had been forgiven. To his delight, a library at Dulwich College
0:54:53 > 0:54:56'was named in his honour.'
0:54:56 > 0:55:00He was measured for a waxwork at Madame Tussauds.
0:55:00 > 0:55:04And then came the final act of rehabilitation.
0:55:04 > 0:55:09PG Wodehouse gets to 90, and finally gets the knighthood.
0:55:09 > 0:55:12I think he was thrilled by that. There'd been a big debate
0:55:12 > 0:55:16within the British Establishment during the Wilson-Heath years.
0:55:16 > 0:55:19Wilson was in favour of it,
0:55:19 > 0:55:21and finally it was given in January '75,
0:55:21 > 0:55:25the same batch, so to speak, as Charlie Chaplin.
0:55:25 > 0:55:27And Wodehouse said a rather lovely thing.
0:55:27 > 0:55:31When the news came through, he said, "So, that's that, then."
0:55:31 > 0:55:35He'd been absolved, and he'd had his... He'd been given his pardon.
0:55:35 > 0:55:39I think it's a sort of graceful act on the part of the government,
0:55:39 > 0:55:43sort of more or less saying, "Well, that's that," you know.
0:55:43 > 0:55:46But sadly the knighthood in some ways was the end of him,
0:55:46 > 0:55:49because he was swamped with fan mail. He felt obliged to answer it,
0:55:49 > 0:55:52and he developed a skin condition, went into hospital,
0:55:52 > 0:55:56had a heart attack and he died, on St Valentine's Day '75.
0:55:58 > 0:56:01Good writers normally deal with death, suffering, pain,
0:56:01 > 0:56:06divorce, adultery and sexuality.
0:56:06 > 0:56:10He avoids all those things, writes magnificent books,
0:56:10 > 0:56:14and manages to write books that will be read
0:56:14 > 0:56:17as long as anybody else's books.
0:56:17 > 0:56:20Wodehouse has created characters that live for people
0:56:20 > 0:56:23who've never picked up one of the novels,
0:56:23 > 0:56:25and that is the sign of a really great writer.
0:56:25 > 0:56:27You create a character that walks off the pages
0:56:27 > 0:56:30and into the world. Amazing.
0:56:30 > 0:56:32I find that, whatever the circumstances...
0:56:32 > 0:56:36There was a point where my daughter was very desperately ill,
0:56:36 > 0:56:38and the only thing I could do was read Wodehouse.
0:56:38 > 0:56:41It got me through the most hideous time.
0:56:41 > 0:56:44He's also left behind a feeling that...
0:56:44 > 0:56:48you can be funny without being cruel.
0:56:48 > 0:56:53You can be nice and charming without being boring.
0:56:53 > 0:56:55I love that.
0:56:55 > 0:56:57The people I most envy on Earth
0:56:57 > 0:56:59are those who've never read any Wodehouse,
0:56:59 > 0:57:03who pick up their first book, because they now have 90 books
0:57:03 > 0:57:08to get through, and people have such sheer pleasure ahead of them.
0:57:08 > 0:57:12There's no pleasure I know like it, and I envy them.
0:57:12 > 0:57:15'After his death, the items which had been so much a part
0:57:15 > 0:57:18'of his long working life were sent to Dulwich College,
0:57:18 > 0:57:21'and reside in the Wodehouse Library.'
0:57:21 > 0:57:23Here we are.
0:57:24 > 0:57:27The great man's study,
0:57:27 > 0:57:32brought across from Long Island in New York.
0:57:32 > 0:57:37Wodehouse used to write down ideas in pencil.
0:57:37 > 0:57:40"Man with horror of cats, like Lord Roberts,
0:57:40 > 0:57:44falls in love with a girl who keeps cats."
0:57:44 > 0:57:46Look at all this!
0:57:46 > 0:57:50The Royal typewriter. This was his first book, I think.
0:57:50 > 0:57:52Yeah.
0:57:52 > 0:57:54The Pothunters.
0:57:54 > 0:57:57- HE LAUGHS - Very public school!
0:57:57 > 0:57:59The Pothunters.
0:57:59 > 0:58:02"To William Townend, these first fruits
0:58:02 > 0:58:07of a genius at which the world will (shortly) be amazed,
0:58:07 > 0:58:11(you see if it won't), from the author, PG Wodehouse."
0:58:11 > 0:58:16I wonder - modest, kindly, innocent man that he was -
0:58:16 > 0:58:20I wonder if he realised just how much of a genius he was,
0:58:20 > 0:58:25and how much those words would come true.
0:58:25 > 0:58:27The world would be amazed.
0:58:52 > 0:58:56Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:56 > 0:59:00E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk
0:59:00 > 0:59:01.