Mulliner stories by P.G. Wodehouse
Just found one of the Wodehouse Playhouse stories on YouTube and had to share. If you’re not familiar with P.G. Wodehouse, you’ve led a sad, joyless existence so far, and I recommend you immediately read The Code of the Woosters or Heavy Weather or Something Fresh and look forward to a brighter, sunnier day.
P.G. Wodehouse ranks with Jane Austen and that Shakespeare fellow as one of the quintessential English wordsmiths, and some of his most enjoyable stories are the shortest, including the Mulliner stories. They’re usually related by an elderly Mulliner to a reluctant listener and recount some tale of love and adventure involving a younger Mulliner. (Don’t even get me started on the golf stories.)
Wodehouse Playhouse is a series that ran in the mid-1970s that dramatized many of the Mulliner stories and starred John Alderton and Pauline Collins. The Smile That Wins involves Adrian Mulliner, a private detective suffering from dyspepsia, who is advised by his doctor that he must learn to smile if he wants to feel better. The only problem is that Adrian’s smile is a knowing one, that causes the guilty to tremble, but that proves to be quite useful in his quest for the hand of Lady Millicent Shipton-Bellinger—over her father’s objections.
Incidentally, just as with Holmes and Austen, there are Wodehouse societies worldwide, but as far as I know, there is no Denver society and I am contemplating starting one (because I don’t have enough hobbies). I’m quite interested in one chapter called The Clients of Adrian Mulliner, for Holmes/Wodehouse enthusiasts. Perhaps I could start the Drones of Diogenes or some such. If you’d be interested in meeting on an informal basis (coffee at the Tattered Cover every other month perhaps), leave a comment here.
PS Perhaps we could meet for breakfast and call it Eggs and b. You’ll have to read the stories to find out the significance of the abbreviation.