List of Wodehouse Playhouse episodes
Wodehouse Playhouse is a British television comedy series based on the short stories of P. G. Wodehouse. From 1974 to 1978, three series and a pilot were made, with 21 half-hour episodes altogether in the entire series.
Series 1
Episode Number 1
The Truth about George
Original Air Date 23 April 1975
George Mulliner’s terrible stammer prevents him from proposing to his neighbour, Susan Blake. A London specialist advises George to speak to three total strangers each day, singing the words if necessary. This leads George into some embarrassing encounters with fellow train passengers, including ‘The Emperor of Abyssinia’, an escapee from a mental asylum. But his stammer does vanish and he declares his love to Susan.
Episode Number 2
Romance at Droitgate
Original Air Date 30 April 1975
Freddie Fitch-Fitch (Julian Holloway) wants to marry Annabelle Purvis (aka Princess Alura), assistant to conjuror Mortimer Rackstraw (aka The Great Boloni), but his uncle Sir Aylmer Bastable won’t release his trust fund. When Sir Aylmer, a hypochondriac, learns that Annabelle’s uncle Joe Boffin is also a famous hypochondriac and has even been written up in medical journals, he relents.
Episode Number 3
Portrait of a Disciplinarian
Original Air Date 7 May 1975
Reginald Mulliner is induced by his brother to take afternoon tea with his childhood nanny (Daphne Heard), now retired. But she has lost none of her ability to frighten him. However, she has also invited Jane Oliphant, his ex-fiancee. Locked together in a cupboard, they make up their differences.
Episode Number 4
Unpleasantness at Bludleigh Court
Original Air Date 14 May 1975
Aubrey Bassinger, who writes ‘Pastels in Prose’ meets Charlotte Mulliner who writes ‘Vingettes in Verse’. They fall in love. They visit his ancestral home, Bludleigh Court, but Aubrey’s father (Ballard Berkeley) and the rest of the hunting-mad family cast a malevolent spell on the couple. They find themselves also turning into blood-thirsty hunters and can only recover by escaping to London and marrying.
Episode Number 5
The rise of Minna Nordstrom
Original Air Date 21 May 1975
In 1920’s Hollywood, everyone wants to get into films, including Vera Prebble, a parlour maid. She is fired in succession by producers Jacob Schnellenhammer (John Alderton), Isidor Q Fishbein (Sydney Tafler), and Ben Zizzbaum (Peter Jones). In revenge, she blackmails them by threatening to tell police that they are storing and drinking alcohol on their premises during Prohibition. They buy her off by making her a silent film star under the name of Minna Nordstrom.
Episode Number 6
Rodney Fails to Qualify
Original Air Date 28 May 1975
William Bates and Jill Packard, both avid golfers, have loved each other for years, but William’s too shy to propose. The Oldest Member at the golf club (William Mervyn) takes matters in hand, but then Jill falls for dreamy poetry-quoting Rodney Spelvin. Whilst Jill is playing in the Ladies Cup, he admits that he hates golf. She is so shocked that she and William finally get together.
Episode Number 7
A Voice from the Past
Original Air Date 4 June 1975
Muriel Branksome and Sacheverell Mulliner are engaged, but Mulliner can’t stand up to his fierce future father-in-law. He enrols in a correspondence course to gain Self-Confidence. Unfortunately, it works too well, turns him into an overpowering bully and the engagement is off. Mulliner tries to win Muriel back, but then meets his old Headmaster, now a bishop, who still frightens him.
Series 2
Episode Number 1
Anselm Gets His Chance
Original Air Date 26 March 1976
Rev. Anselm Mulliner and Myrtle Jellaby want to marry, but can’t afford it on a curate's meagre stipend. Then Anselm inherits an allegedly valuable stamp album, but Muriel’s uncle Sir Leopold (Thorley Walters), realising its worth, offers him ten pounds for it. When Rev. Gooch (Desmond LLewelyn) is indisposed, Anselm has the opportunity to give the evensong sermon of his life, on the subject of ‘brotherly love’. Sir Leopold is moved to offer Anselm ten thousand pounds for the album.
Episode Number 2
Mr Potter takes a Rest Cure
Original Air Date 2 April 1976
Long-winded politician Clifford Gandle wants to marry Bobbie Wickham. She isn’t keen, but Lady Wickham insists on the match. Bobbie, a mischief-maker, persuades visiting American publisher Mr Potter that Gandle is prone to attacks of homicidal mania She also convinces Gandle that Mr Potter is contemplating suicide. In the ensuing chaos, the proposed match comes to nothing.
Episode Number 3
Strychnine in the Soup
Original Air Date 9 April 1976
Cyril Mulliner, an interior decorator with a passion for mystery stories, is in love with Amelia Bassett, a fellow devotee. Lady Bassett (Joan Sanderson) objects, preferring Lester Mapledurham ("pronounced 'Mum'"), a well-known big game hunter and explorer, as a son-in-law. Thanks to a copy of the new ‘Inspector Mould’ mystery, Strychnine in the Soup. Lester is scratched from the marriage race and Cyril wins Amelia.
Episode Number 4
Feet of Clay
Original Air Date 23 April 1976
Sydney McMurdo and Agnes Flack, both avid golfers, are engaged, but her head is turned by dashing and boastful Captain Jack Fosdyke and she becomes engaged to him instead. Sydney, at a loose end, becomes engaged to Cora McGuffy Spottsworth, a flamboyant writer and mystic who believes that they knew each other in a previous life. Cora and Agnes compete in the Women’s Championship. With one hole to go and all square, a Pekinese dog runs off with the ball Agnes is about to play. Jack urges Agnes to concede the match, Agnes is appalled at the suggestion and their engagement is off. Agnes and Sydney get together again, and Jack, now exposed as a fake, finds solace with Lulubelle Sprockett, an air-headed blonde American heiress.
Episode Number 5
The Nodder
Original Air Date 30 April 1976
Wilmot Mulliner is a lowly ‘nodder’ in a Hollywood studio whose sole job is to agree to the pronouncements of producer I Q Fishbein (Sydney Tafler). Wilmot falls for Fishbein’s secretary Mabel Ridgeway, but she won’t marry him unless he proves himself worthy. After apparently bravely tacking a violent gorilla (actually an actor in disguise), he does proves worthy of Muriel’s attention. Mabel, a former vaudeville birdcall-imitator, has a dispute with Fishbein over the proper manner of imitating a cuckoo for a film (cuckoo-cuckoo v wuckoo-wuckoo). Wilmot finds the courage to defy his boss and defend Mabel.
Episode Number 6
The Code of the Mulliners
Original Air Date 7 May 1976
Archibald Mulliner, whose sole claim to fame is that he can imitate a hen laying an egg, believes that his Mother (Daphne Oxenford) is developing insanity. Thinking that insanity can be inherited, he decides to break his engagement to Aurelia Cammerleigh (Gabrielle Drake), but the Code of the Mulliners will not allow him to take this step. On Tuppy Glossop’s advice, he hires an actress, Yvonne Maltravers, to confront the couple at the Savoy Grill in the role of a Woman from his Past. In the midst of the scene, Lady Mulliner turns up, revealing that her odd behaviour is really a cure for a double chin. She also recognises Yvonne. Archibald quickly concocts the story that Yvonne is seeking his assistance to land a part for producer Charles B. Cochran.
Series 3
Episode Number 1
The Smile that Wins
Original Air Date 31 October 1978
In the course of returning a lost dog, Adrian Mulliner, a private detective, falls in love with Lady Millicent Shipton-Bellinger, the daughter of the Earl of Brangbolton. His lowly social status and equally lowly financial status does not allow them to marry, and the Earl insists that Millicent must marry Sir Jasper Addleton, the financier.
Adrian regularly suffers from dyspepsia, and a doctor advises him that the best cure for dyspepsia is to smile (which he hasn’t attempted since the age of twelve).
At a wedding reception, where Adrian is assigned to keep an eye on potentially thieving guests, his odd smile is interpreted as saying 'I know all', and causes a nervousness amongst people with something to hide. A guest helping himself to a fish slice is his first victim and Adrian finds himself invited to the Baronet's country home. The next guilty party is Addleton who, believing that Mulliner knows of his dirty dealings, hands him a cheque for a hundred thousand pounds and agrees to leave the country. Adrian gets the Earl's blessing to marry Millicent.
Episode Number 2
Trouble down at Tudsleigh
Original Air Date 7 November 1978
Visiting Tudsleigh Court, Freddie Widgeon falls in love with April Carroway. He even starts reading Tennyson’s poetry, which she admires – especially ‘The Lady of Shallot’. Captain Bradbury, on leave from India, also admires April, and makes it clear what will happen if Freddie doesn’t clear out. Nevertheless, Freddie invites April for a row on the river. She fails to turn up and he’s stuck with her prankish young sister Prudence instead. Prudence vanishes and appears to have drowned in the river. In an attempt to find her, Freddie plunges into the river to find her, steals a car, breaks into Bradbury’s cottage, and gets the heave-ho from April for his trouble.
Episode Number 3
Tangled Hearts
Original Air Date 14 November 1978
Smallwood Bessemer, indefatigable know-it-all and golf club bore (although he doesn’t actually play golf), and Carter Muldoon, are both dumped by their fiancées. The Oldest Member tries fruitlessly to reconcile them, and the two men eventually become engaged to their opposite former girls. Bessemer learns to play golf (as he thinks) and the two couples play a match. It’s a disaster, and the original couples get back together.
Episode Number 4
The Luck of the Stiffhams
Original Air Date 21 November 1978
Adolphus (Stiffy) Stiffham, secretary to the Earl of Wivelscombe (Leslie Sands), wants to marry his daughter Lady Geraldine Spettisbury ((Liza Goddard), but is dismissed for his trouble. He leaves for America (not knowing that the Wall Street Crash has just occurred), hoping to make his fortune. At his hotel, the bellboy gets him involved in an illegal craps game. Innocently betting against a hardened crew of players, he makes $120,000, and banks it. Next day, thinking that the bank has gone bust, he writes a suicide note to Geraldine, but then learns that the money is safe. He returns home to claim Geraldine. She still loves him, but the Earl thinks that he really has committed suicide, and what he sees is really Stiffy’s ghost. The Earl is thoroughly frightened that he will be haunted. With the connivance of the butler (John Rudling), the Earl gives his consent to the marriage.
Episode Number 5
The Editor Regrets
Original Air Date 28 November 1978
Bingo Little, now married to Rosie M Banks, is editor of the magazine ‘Wee Tots’ owned by Mr Purkis. He loses his job when he inadvertently gives the air to visiting American author of children’s stories, Bella Mae Jobson, who was about to sign a contract with Purkis. Meeting Bella later at a party, he enlists Tuppy Glossop’s assistance (and money), to ‘give her the old oil’. Bella eventually agrees a contract with the magazine. Bingo extricates Purkis from a potentially compromising situation, and gets his job back.
Episode Number 6
Big Business
Original Air Date 5 December 1978
Reginald Mulliner and Amanda Biffen (Maggie Henderson) want to marry, and when Mulliner inherits £50,000, it seems the ideal opportunity. Mulliner is induced to use the money to buy a block of worthless oil shares (Smelly River Ordinaries) by Amanda’s rascally guardian, Sir Jethro Mott (Derek Francis), and Amanda ‘gives him the raspberry’. Mulliner is due to perform ‘Ol’ Man River’ that night at a church social, and with no fiancée and no money, his emotions take over and he gives it all he’s got, to great applause. Thus encouraged, he goes back to have it out with Sir Jethro. Amanda, who was in the audience, also comes back to apologise to Mulliner. With the assistance of a not-too-bright policeman, they get Sir Jethro to buy back the shares, with a profit to Mulliner.
Episode Number 7
Mulliner’s Buck-U-Uppo
Original Air Date 12 December 1978
Rev. Augustine Mulliner, a meek young curate, is in love with Jane Brandon, but they are opposed by her father, the vicar (John Barron). Augustine’s Aunt Agatha sends him a bottle of a tonic, Buck-U-Uppo, which her husband is developing. Mulliner takes a tablespoonful. He immediately acquires more confidence and assertiveness as well as greater physical strength. Thus fortified, he rescues a visiting bishop (Cyril Luckham) from a fierce dog, and firmly ends a quarrel between the bishop and the vicar, who have hated each other since school. He receives the vicar's thanks and a promotion to vicar in a nearby parish. But then Mulliner learns that the tonic he drank was not the one meant for human consumption – it’s really meant for increasing the courage of elephants in India. Augustine promptly orders three cases of the tonic.