Anyone who loves PG Wodehouse knows Jeeves and Wooster, Blandings Castle and the Oldest Member golf stories.
Subscribe to the Country Life Podcast
But what of the man himself? His early life as a sensation on Broadway? His extraordinary seven-days-a-week work ethic? The truth about his attempts to flee the Nazis, scuppered by an unreliable car, before he was interned and pressured into making wartime broadcasts for the German regime? His later life in the US, and his sadness at never returning to the UK — even to collect his eventual knighthood?
These are some of the things that fuelled a conversation a decade ago between Robert Daws and Stephen Fry, which set Daws off on a road that will lead him to the stage at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh this summer, playing the role of P.G. Wodehouse in a one-man show, Wodehouse in Wonderland.
'Stephen mentioned that very few people know anything about P.G. Wodehouse the writer,' he said. 'They might know about the scandal around him in the Second World War, but apart from that, not really anything. And we thought there should be something.'
That led to Daws speaking to William Humble, a friend, collaborator, screenwriter and playwright who happened to have been working on an unproduced screenplay about Wodehouse. The play Wodehouse in Wonderland was ready within weeks, went on tour a couple of years ago, and is now back on stage at the Edinburgh festival to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Wodehouse's death.
We're delighted that Robert was able to join us on the Country Life Podcast to talk about Wodehouse's life and career, from his little-known start as a writer of smash-hit shows on Broadway — he was a huge success before he wrote a single word about Jeeves and Wooster — through to his final years living in the US.
Wodehouse in Wonderland is at Tabard in London from July 20-22 and at The Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh from July 30 to August 25, 2025.
Episode credits
Host, editor and producer: Toby Keel
Guest: Robert Daws
Music: JuliusH via Pixabay
Back next week: James Fisher
-
Deep lakes, tall peaks and Flemish portraiture. It's the Country Life Quiz of the DayAugust 28's quiz gets to grips with geography, art, film and also cats.
-
Gill Meller wants to make soufflé great again with his sweetcorn and smoked cheddar recipeIs the soufflé on the brink of extinction? Well, not if Gill Meller's recipe for a sweetcorn and smoked cheddar has anything to do with it.
-
Galls: Nature's most beautiful, horrifying and intriguing parasitesA playground for aphids, wasp eggs, and funghi — galls come in all shapes and sizes
-
Five years of drought means there's only one conclusion for Britain's farmers: 'Climate change is real and affecting us now'The cumulative effects of the past five years of hot weather are causing chaos for farmers — and there's no signs that it will improve. Jane Wheatley reports.
-
‘The closest that screenwriting has ever got to Shakespearean’: In an era of television slop, what should you be watching?Members of the Country Life team reveal what they’re watching — and rewatching — this autumn.
-
Sophia Money-Coutts: If you have same-sex parents, who should walk you down the aisle?Sophia Money-Coutts is the new Debrett's and she's here every Wednesday to set some modern etiquette wrongs, right.
-
If there's no fish, there's no fishing, with Robin PhilpottThe CEO of Farlows joins the Country Life Podcast.
-
The ring ouzel: The mystery behind the common blackbird's feral twinA master of disguise, inexplicably shy and unpredictably wild, the increasingly rare ring ouzel warrants giving any blackbird a second glance.
-
The winners and losers of summer 2025, from foragers to fishermen, and turtles to troutBlue skies and rising mercury have been a theme of this summer, but there are always those who thrive and those who struggle in unusual times.
-
What the hedge can tell us about the countryside, with Richard NegusThe hedge is much more than just a barrier between one field and the next. Richard Negus joins the Country Life Podcast to discuss his work, his latest book and how he's being tapped up to switch cricket clubs.
