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)

Wogan on Wodehouse, 2 September 2011, BBC2

by Murray Hedgcock

As Gussie Fink-Nottle put it – “Two Irishmen, Pat and Mike, were walking along Broadway”.

But – sadly – not that other Irishman, Terry.

Researching Wogan on Wodehouse, seen on BBC2 on September 2, Terry Wogan announced with regret that the Corporation had not seen fit to send him to New York, to soak up atmosphere reminiscent of the great days when PGW was simultaneously involved in no fewer than five Broadway musicals.

Perhaps as a result, his programme did not much more than sketch the Wodehouse American years, not properly explaining just how significant his adopted country had been to Plum for so much of his adult life.

No matter; this was a reflective, warmly affectionate study in which Wogan made no secret of his admiration and enthusiasm for the unequalled comic genius of PGW. “Practically everything he did was bathed in sunshine.”

It was a pleasure to see and hear from so many familiar faces – and to meet others not immediately associated (in this writer’s mind, anyway) with PGW.

The programme began with suitable serendipity to a melodic background of Anything Goes – the tune and title of that most jauntily engaging of all the Broadway shows to which Plum contributed.

Sir Terence Wogan’s smile was non-stop as he explained his personal PGW history, an enthusiasm made public on May 21, 1983, when he asked on Desert Island Discs if instead of the complete Shakespeare, he could take to his island all the works of Plum.

The meticulous Roy Plomley ruled against him – but as Terry explained, when he appeared on the programme again years later, he was then allowed his Plummy wish.

Wogan presented most of his linking comment to camera in charming great house settings, where you could have imagined Plum himself, plus many of his characters, strolling in the background.

Just three contributors had actually known PGW personally – our own Edward Cazalet, who spoke with affection and understanding of his step-grandfather; lyricist Tim Rice; and publisher Christopher MacLehose.

Edward suggested if Plum had felt it politic to return to England after the war, he would have done three things: sought out rural England, revisited Dulwich College – and watched a Test match.

Sadly, Ireland's recent advance in the world of cricket did not appear to have reached Wogan, as he made only passing reference to the important place of the Summer Game in Wodehouse's life and writings. But we did see a charming shot of the Dulwich playing fields and pavilion, where we of The Gold Bats have so regularly sported.

Tim Rice recalled the least successful of all Wodehouse-linked stage shows – Jeeves, the 1975 musical planned with partner Andrew Lloyd-Webber, from which the lyricist dropped out. The pair visited Remsenburg to discuss the project, but as Rice recalled, “All I felt I was doing was making PGW less funny”.

Christopher MacLehose was Plum’s Barrie and Jenkins editor from 1968 to 1973, and it was a coup to get him on camera, recording his thoughts of the relationship of author to editor. He summed up man and writings succinctly: “If you knew his books, you knew him”.

The major recurring commentators were Robert McCrum, whose Wodehouse – A Life (Viking, 2004) is unequalled as a biography, and Stephen Fry, peerless gentleman’s gentleman of Jeeves and Wooster (what a shame that the Beeb block on a Wogan American visit ruled out a contribution from USA-based Hugh Laurie – Bertie of the series).

Fry termed Plum both “the supreme professional” and “a lord of language”.

Recalling the invitation that he and Laurie should take the televised roles of man and master, he commented; “It was a heck of a risk. We thought – we can’t possibly do this; it would be sacrilege. On the other hand – we can’t let anyone else do it.”

The brilliant Seventies BBC radio series was recalled by its Bertie Wooster, our President, Richard Briers. He read a flavoursome extract from “Jeeves Exerts the Old Cerebellum” to an appreciative Wogan.

Some of the most lively and thoughtful comments came from the novelist Kate Mosse, who declared Plum showed the mark of “a really good writer, by making his characters walk off the page into the wider world”.

Old friends delivering their verdicts included Jan Piggott, late of Dulwich; Sophie Ratcliffe, whose edited collection of Wodehouse letters is due for publication next month; and television’s Griff Rhys Jones.

He reminded us that he is much more than just a funny face; Griff read English and history at Cambridge, and his ability to analyse a writer’s work was made fully clear, not least with the thought, “Wodehouse’s life was about work (as a dedicated writer) but he wrote about people who did not work”.

For all of us who have wallowed in one of Murphy’s Walks, there was an appealing sequence when our own Norman Murphy – trademark umbrella tightly furled in the best tradition of man-about-town – guided Wogan to significant addresses in the Mayfair of both Wodehouse and Wooster.

BBC sound engineers performed the magic of slowing the Colonel’s usual staccato parade-ground delivery to the point that every word came through with pleasing clarity.

Society stalwart Tony Ring, whose knowledge was tapped for the programme, rated a proper mention in the closing credits, and it has to be said that Terry and his team put not a foot wrong at any stage, tackling the story with a reassuring lightness and sureness of touch.

It is of course obligatory on reviewers to find some fault in any production, and I must record the comment by Fry, that there was at no stage any mention of the First World War.

Aha. Not so. It was in Ring for Jeeves that Lord Rowcester, inquiring, “Were you in the First World War, Jeeves?”, elicited the response; “I dabbled in it to a certain extent, m’Lord”.

As to the Second World War and that sad episode where innocent, blinkered Plum, from the best of motives, fell for a Nazi version of the three-card trick and made those quite funny but desperately ill-timed Berlin radio broadcasts, Wogan and his cast were understanding, without glossing over the foolishness and lasting impact of the event.

Fry got it right about the judgment, or misjudgment: “He had not taken the temperature back home” (in Britain).

Plum’s distaste for the world of home-grown Fascism was underscored by the reading of his study of that frightful ass Spode – a telling literary portrait drawn from life and the person of the odious Oswald Mosley.

Let the last word come from biographer Robert McCrum. If Plum had gone to Oxford, as he had always expected, what then?

“I think he would have become a civil servant – or a judge.” Not a writer.

In an age when the value of university education is increasingly questioned, we can only say – thank goodness Plum never made it.

You can watch Wogan on Wodehouse on the BBC iPlayer until 13th September 2011, by clicking here.