Charles Pooter is a fictional character, the supposed author and leading character of George and Weedon Grossmith's comic novel The Diary of a Nobody (1892). Pooter is a middle-aged and middle-class clerk in the City of London, with ideas above his station. Apart from taking himself very seriously, he is an extreme example of self-importance, with the unhappy result that he is much snubbed by those he considers beneath him. [1] He has a wife called Carrie and a son called Lupin, the latter unsuitably engaged to the distressingly inferior Daisy Mutlar. [1]
The Pooters live at The Laurels, Brickfield Terrace, Holloway, London, in a nice six-roomed residence, not counting basement, with a front breakfast-parlour, a little front garden, and a flight of ten steps up to the front door. A nice little back garden runs down to the railway, which causes no nuisance, other than the cracking up of the garden wall. [1] The exact location of the real "Laurels" had always been a subject of speculation, but in 2008 journalist Harry Mount claimed to have found the original in Pemberton Gardens, a road that cuts from Upper Holloway Road to Junction Road in Archway. [2] Pooter's intimate friends Cummings and Gowing always let themselves in at the side entrance, thus saving the housemaid the trouble of going to the door. [1] He sometimes drinks Madeira. [3]
The character has spawned the word Pooterism (Pooterish, Pooteresque), which means taking oneself far too seriously: believing that one's importance or influence is far greater than it really is. [4] [5] [6]
A 1984 edition of The Diary of a Nobody published by Elm Tree Books included new illustrations by artists Paul Hogarth and Philip Hood, the latter providing a colour caricature of Pooter in the style of the Victorian publication Vanity Fair at the suggestion of the publisher. This showed Pooter in a typical pose carrying business documents while painting the bath with red enamel paint. Based on the illustrations by Weedon Grossmith, Hood's was the first attempt by an artist to create a detailed and realistic portrait of Charles Pooter. [7] [8]
Tufnell Park is an area in north London, England, in the London boroughs of Islington and Camden.
Islington is a district in the north of Greater London, England, and part of the London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy High Street, Upper Street, Essex Road, and Southgate Road to the east.
Simon Anthony Lee Brett OBE FRSL is a British author of detective fiction, a playwright, and a producer-writer for television and radio. As an author, he is best known for his mystery series featuring Charles Paris, Mrs Pargeter, Fethering, and Blotto & Twinks. His radio credits have included The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and Just a Minute.
Stanley Augustus Holloway was an English actor, comedian, singer and monologist. He was famous for his comic and character roles on stage and screen, especially that of Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady. He was also renowned for his comic monologues and songs, which he performed and recorded throughout most of his 70-year career.
George Grossmith was an English comedian, writer, composer, actor, and singer. His performing career spanned more than four decades. As a writer and composer, he created 18 comic operas, nearly 100 musical sketches, some 600 songs and piano pieces, three books and both serious and comic pieces for newspapers and magazines.
Walter Weedon Grossmith, better known as Weedon Grossmith, was an English writer, painter, actor, and playwright best known as co-author of The Diary of a Nobody (1892) with his brother, music hall comedian and Gilbert and Sullivan star George Grossmith. Weedon Grossmith also illustrated The Diary of a Nobody to much acclaim.
The Diary of a Nobody is an English comic novel written by the brothers George and Weedon Grossmith, with illustrations by the latter. It originated as an intermittent serial in Punch magazine in 1888–89 and first appeared in book form, with extended text and added illustrations, in 1892. The Diary records the daily events in the lives of a London clerk, Charles Pooter, his wife Carrie, his son William Lupin, and numerous friends and acquaintances over a period of 15 months.
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Holloway Road is a road in London, 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) in length. It is one of the main shopping streets in North London, and carries the A1 road as it passes through Holloway, in the London Borough of Islington. The road starts in Archway, near Archway Underground station, then heads south-east, past Upper Holloway railway station, Whittington Park, past the North London campus of London Metropolitan University near Nag's Head, past Holloway Road Underground station, and the main campus of the university, and then becomes Highbury Corner, near Highbury & Islington station.
The Big Read was a survey on books carried out by the BBC in the United Kingdom in 2003, where over three-quarters of a million votes were received from the British public to find the nation's best-loved novel. The year-long survey was the biggest single test of public reading taste to date, and culminated with several programmes hosted by celebrities, advocating their favourite books.
Geoffrey Dyson Palmer was an English actor. His roles in British television sitcoms include playing Jimmy Anderson in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976–79), Ben Parkinson in Butterflies (1978–1983) and Lionel Hardcastle in As Time Goes By (1992–2005). His film appearances include A Fish Called Wanda (1988), The Madness of King George (1994), Mrs Brown (1997), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and Paddington (2014). He also made guest appearances in television series such as The Avengers, The Saint, Doctor Who, The Sweeney, Fawlty Towers, The Goodies, Blackadder Goes Forth, Inspector Morse, Bergerac, Ashes to Ashes and Agatha Christie's Poirot.
Whiteleys was a shopping centre in Bayswater, London. It was built in the retail space of the former William Whiteley Limited department store, which opened in 1911 as one of London's first department stores, and was one of the main department stores, alongside Selfridge's, Liberty's and Harrods. The centre's main entrance was located on Queensway.
Sir Francis Cowley Burnand, usually known as F. C. Burnand, was an English comic writer and prolific playwright, best known today as the librettist of Arthur Sullivan's opera Cox and Box.
Terrence Edward Hardiman was an English actor. He often portrayed authority figures such as Nazi-era personnel and a British officer.
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Charles Henry Bennett was a British Victorian illustrator who pioneered techniques in comic illustration.
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George Grossmith Jr. was an English actor, theatre producer and manager, director, playwright and songwriter, best remembered for his work in and with Edwardian musical comedies. Grossmith was also an important innovator in bringing "cabaret" and "revues" to the London stage. Born in London, he took his first role on the musical stage at the age of 18 in Haste to the Wedding (1892), a West End collaboration between his famous songwriter and actor father and W. S. Gilbert.
John Basil Boothroyd was an English humorous writer, best known for his long association with Punch. As a young man he worked for a bank, but began contributing articles to Punch, and became its assistant editor, a post in which he served for eighteen years. His career as a writer for Punch spanned the editorships of E. V. Knox to Alan Coren. Boothroyd's chief literary work outside the comic essay was an official biography of Prince Philip undertaken at the request of its subject. Boothroyd also wrote for television and radio, and was a frequent broadcaster.