Quotations from P G Wodehouse are copyright of, and reprinted by permission of, the Trustees of the Wodehouse Estate © 2012 The P G Wodehouse Society (UK)

Plum Pie: The Exhibition at Heywood Hill. Members’ Night – 29th September 2009

by Peter Thompson

In fact, the definite article in the title should be all in capitals: “THE”. And in flashing lights! With fireworks!

It is a wonderful exhibition and, as Hilary Bruce our Chairman said in her few words of address, “unlikely to be repeated”.

Taking place at G Heywood Hill Limited, 10 Curzon Street, London W1, in their bookshop which reeks welcome and self-indulgence on Wodehouse books, there were displayed boards charting the progress of the life of the author in words and pictures as you walked around the premises.

Some of the display boards (photo by Ginni Beard)

Part of the wall displays (photo by Ginni Beard)

Interspersed with these were wonderful exhibits such as Plum’s Royal typewriter, his walking stick (a gift from Guy Bolton), his Trilby hat, pipes with tobacco jar, not to mention his cow creamer (not a silver one, Bertie Wooster’s Uncle Tom will be pleased to hear). And from his sporting life, his golf umbrella and a putter.

Plum’s Royal typewriter and other items from his study (photo by Jamie Jarrett)

In a glass cabinet we could read original typescripts for his work as corrected by PGW in longhand, above them a letter to fellow author Arnold Bennett explaining the lengths to which he went in order to ensure that the printers understood he really did want the phrase “festive s” in “Jeeves and the Yuletide Spirit”, but all to no avail as they persisted with “festives”, totally failing to appreciate the essence of their author’s work and spoiling the sense of the passage.

Original typescripts from “The Girl In Blue” (photo by Jamie Jarrett)

Downstairs there were posters of the musical comedies which brought PGW, Guy Bolton and composer Jerome Kern so much success, including a brilliant poster of Gertrude Lawrence in “Oh Kay”. Plum’s great achievement of five productions with his lyrics on Broadway at the same time in late 1917, a record unsurpassed is celebrated and explained.

The excellent explanations throughout are probably the essence of this exhibition, providing little-known detail for the appreciation of both newcomers and aficionados alike.

Between the bookshelves were printed wonderful examples of the humorous narratives from the books. I suppose we all have particular favorites (“The butler was looking nervous, like Macbeth interviewing Lady Macbeth after one of her visits to the spare room” and “The aunt made a hobby of collecting dry seaweed, which she pressed and pasted in an album. One sometimes thinks that aunts live entirely for pleasure”). If you did not know the origin of any (“Old Lady Punter had gone up to her boudoir with a digestive tablet and a sex-novel” in my case), both Norman Murphy and Tony Ring were on hand to enlighten and inform (Young Men in Spats: "The Amazing Hat Mystery”).

The BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme broadcast six minutes at prime time on the exhibition, a link to which I understand is here.

The TLS and the Evening Standard also gave publicity to this magnificent exhibition.

Hilary Bruce paid tribute to all concerned in putting together the exhibition not least the hardworking staff, a long day for them. Sir Edward Cazalet who with Tony Ring had created this exhibition, explained why the book now published
P G Wodehouse The Unknown Years by Baroness Reinhild von Bodenhausen, the daughter of the family giving home to Plum outside Berlin after his conditional release by the Germans will be an absolute “must” for those interested in Plum or indeed what it was really like to live in Nazi Germany before and during the Second World War.

Members engrossed in the exhibits (photo by Jamie Jarrett)

As Lynn Truss says “Wodehouse always lifts your spirits no matter how high they happen to be already”. This exhibition just takes you higher.