Blandings Castle and Elsewhere
The first six stories all take place at the book's namesake Blandings Castle; they are set some time between the events of Leave it to Psmith (1923) and those of Summer Lightning (1929).
The last five are narrated by Mr Mulliner and are set in Hollywood among the movie studios that Wodehouse knew from his time as a screenwriter in 1930–31.
He accepts an invitation to stay at Skeldings Hall, which is owned by Lady Wickham, a best-selling novelist who wants him to publish her novels in America.
At breakfast the next day, Bobbie cleverly manipulates Potter into believing that it would be wise for him to leave Skeldings Hall as soon as possible, with no notice or explanation.
Indirectly as a result of the advice of Captain Jack Fosdyke (a self-important and possibly lying explorer), Rosalie proposes that she and Montrose be married inside the cage of a star gorilla on the movie set where the two of them work.
A moment later, he trips and falls, and then discovers that the gorilla is towering over him, staring at him with its "hideous face," having just climbed the steps behind the set as well.
While discussing child characters in films portrayed by midgets, Mr Mulliner remarks that one such actor, Johnny Bingley, played a role in the affairs of his distant relative Wilmot.
Schnellenhamer talks about adding birds that go "cuckoo" to the story, but Mabel says he is wrong, to the astonishment of the many obsequious men in the room.
The topic of dieting comes up at the Angler's Rest, leading Mr Mulliner to tell the following story about Wilmot (from "The Nodder").
This siren warns all workers on the lot to take cover because Hortensia Burwash, the temperamental female star actress, has lost her temper.
Everyone flees except Wilmot, who is too busy brooding on his diet to notice, Mabel, who crouches on top of the filing cabinet, and Schnellenhamer, who hides in a cupboard.
He begins by describing Vera Prebble, a parlormaid working at the home of the head of a large movie studio.
She (and, according to Mulliner, nearly every other non-acting resident of Hollywood) starts demonstrating her acting prowess whenever she encounters a studio executive, who in this case is Jacob Z. Schnellenhamer.
The three studio heads begin to bargain with her, each outbidding the others, until they decide to merge their firms and thus become a sole negotiator to deal with Prebble.
Prebble selects the stage name of Minna Nordstrom, and cannily requires the executives to sign a letter summarizing the main points of their deal before she hands over the key to the liquor.
At the Angler's Rest, the barmaid mentions a book she is reading in which a couple of castaways are deposited on a desert island, then fall in love with each other even though each is engaged to a different person back home.
Although both immediately disclose that they are engaged to others (Genevieve to Ed Murgatroyd, a Chicago bootlegger), a chaste romance develops as a result of solitude and propinquity.
The pressure of writing triggers a declaration of love by Bulstrode, and when he embraces Genevieve, Mabelle and Ed burst through the door, the latter carrying a sawed-off shotgun.
The other example Hall gave of a short story similar to "Mr Potter Takes a Rest Cure" in this respect was "Uncle Fred Flits By".
[2] In "Mr Potter Takes a Rest Cure", the pompous politician Clifford Gandle exaggerates the neutral vowel which has replaced r at the end of words such as "desire", "here", and "there" in south-east British English.
Gandle's exaggerated pronunciation of the final vowel in the words "Nature" and "razor" is shown by the spellings "Na-chah" and "ra-zah".
and Performing Flea), Wodehouse wrote: "When the Talkies came in and they had to have dialogue, the studios started handing out contracts right and left to everyone who had ever written a line of it.
So though there is a touch of desert island about the place and one feels millions of miles from anywhere, one can always count on meeting half a dozen kindred spirits when one is asked out to dinner."
In The Strand Magazine, "Monkey Business", "The Nodder", "The Juice of an Orange", "The Rise of Minna Nordstrom", and "The Castaways" were illustrated by Gilbert Wilkinson.
[6] In American Magazine, "Monkey Business", "The Nodder", "The Juice of an Orange", and "The Rise of Minna Nordstrom" were illustrated by Roy F.
[10] The story was translated into Swedish by Birgitta Hammar and published in the Stockholm magazine Böckernas värld in 1971, with illustrations by Gunnar Brusewitz.
[17] Several of the Blandings shorts from this collection were adapted for the first series of The World of Wodehouse, broadcast in February and March 1967 in six half-hour episodes.
They starred Ralph Richardson as Lord Emsworth, Derek Nimmo as Freddie Threepwood, Meriel Forbes as Lady Constance, and Stanley Holloway as Beach.
Some of the stories featured in the collection, "Mr Potter Takes a Rest Cure", "The Rise of Minna Nordstrom" and "The Nodder" (combined with "Monkey Business") were produced as part of the BBC's Wodehouse Playhouse series, starring John Alderton and Pauline Collins, airing in 1975 and 1976 respectively.
[18] In 2013 and 2014, BBC television aired a series titled Blandings starring Timothy Spall as Clarence, Jennifer Saunders as Connie, and Jack Farthing as Freddie.
