Fascist politician and designer of ladies' lingerie, later Earl of Sidcup
Relatives
Mrs. Wintergreen (aunt) Colonel H. H. Wintergreen (uncle) (deceased) 6th Earl of Sidcup (uncle) (deceased)
Nationality
British
Roderick Spode, 7th Earl of Sidcup, often known as Spode or Lord Sidcup, is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves novels of English comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. In the first novel in which he appears, he is an "amateur dictator" and the leader of a fictional fascist group in London called the Saviours of Britain, also known as the Black Shorts. He leaves the group after he inherits his title.
He has a low opinion of Jeeves's employer Bertie Wooster, whom he believes to be a thief. A large and intimidating figure, Spode is protective of Madeline Bassett to an extreme degree and is a threat to anyone who appears to have wronged her, particularly Gussie Fink-Nottle.
Life and character
Spode is a friend of Sir Watkyn Bassett, being the nephew of Sir Watkyn's fiancée Mrs. Wintergreen in The Code of the Woosters, though she is not mentioned again.[1] He is intensively protective of Sir Watkyn's daughter, Madeline Bassett, having loved her for many years without telling her. A violent man, he threatens to tear Bertie's head off and make him eat it. Spode is a large and intimidating figure, with a powerful, square face.[2] When he first sees Spode, Bertie describes him:
About seven feet in height, and swathed in a plaid ulster which made him look about six feet across, he caught the eye and arrested it. It was as if Nature had intended to make a gorilla, and had changed its mind at the last moment.[3]
In Bertie's eyes, Spode starts at seven feet tall, and seems to grow in height, eventually becoming nine feet seven.[2] Bertie immediately thinks of Spode as "the Dictator" even before he learns of Spode's political ambitions. As Bertie says, "I don't know if you have even seen those pictures in the papers of Dictators with tilted chins and blazing eyes, inflaming the populace with fiery words on the occasion of the opening of a new skittle alley, but that was what he reminded me of."[3] Bertie learns how accurate his initial impression of Spode was when Gussie tells him that Spode is the leader of a fascist group called the Saviours of Britain, also known as the Black Shorts. Gussie says of Spode, "His general idea, if he doesn't get knocked on the head with a bottle in one of the frequent brawls in which he and his followers indulge, is to make himself a Dictator."[4]
Like Bertie, Spode had been educated at Oxford; during his time there, he once stole a policeman's helmet.[5] While the leader of the Black Shorts, he is also secretly a designer of ladies' underclothing, being the proprietor of Eulalie Soeurs of Bond Street. Bertie's Aunt Dahlia is a customer at Eulalie Soeurs and remarks that the shop is very popular and successful.[6] Spode later inherits a title on the death of his uncle, becoming the seventh Earl of Sidcup. After being elevated to the peerage, he sells Eulalie Soeurs.[7] At some point, he leaves the Black Shorts. Bertie says in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves that before Spode succeeded to his title, he had been "one of those Dictators who were fairly common at one time in the metropolis", but "he gave it up when he became Lord Sidcup".[8] Despite Spode becoming Lord Sidcup, Bertie usually thinks of him as Spode, at one point addressing him as "Lord Spodecup".[9]
In The Code of the Woosters, most of which takes place at Sir Watkyn's country house, Totleigh Towers, Spode is the leader of the Black Shorts. He quickly starts to think of Bertie as a thief, believing that Bertie was trying to steal Sir Watkyn's umbrella and also the silver cow-creamer from a shop. Spode threatens to beat Bertie to a jelly if he steals the cow-creamer from Sir Watkyn. Spode also antagonizes Gussie, for two reasons. First, Spode thinks Gussie is not devoted enough to Madeline, who is engaged to Gussie. Second, Gussie has insulted Spode in a notebook, writing that Spode's mustache was "like the faint discoloured smear left by a squashed blackbeetle on the side of a kitchen sink", and that the way Spode eats asparagus "alters one's whole conception of Man as Nature's last word."[10] With help from Jeeves and the Junior Ganymede club book, Bertie learns the word "Eulalie", and tells Spode that he knows all about it. Spode, who does not want his followers to learn about his career as a designer of ladies' lingerie, is forced not to bother Bertie or Gussie. Spode is also blackmailed into taking the blame for the theft of Constable Oates's helmet. Bertie does not learn the true meaning of "Eulalie" until the end of the story.[11]
In Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, which takes place at Aunt Dahlia's country house, Brinkley Court, Spode has recently become Lord Sidcup. Bertie and his Aunt Dahlia plan to blackmail Spode with knowledge of "Eulalie" to keep Spode, who is a jewellery expert, from revealing that Aunt Dahlia's pearl necklace is a fake (she pawned the real one to raise money for her magazine, Milady's Boudoir). However, the blackmail plan is unsuccessful, because, as Spode tells Aunt Dahlia, he has sold Eulalie Soeurs. Aunt Dahlia ends up using a cosh she found on the ground to knock out Spode, which allows her to retrieve her fake necklace from a safe in order to hide it so it cannot be appraised. Later in the story, Spode identifies a different pearl necklace, one belonging to the Liverpudlian socialite Mrs. Trotter, as fake.[12]
In Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, which takes place at Totleigh Towers, Spode is as protective of Madeline as ever and threatens to break Bertie's neck when he thinks that he has caused Madeline to cry (she was shedding a tear because she thought Bertie was lovesick and could not stay away from her). Spode, seeing Gussie kiss Emerald Stoker, threatens to break Gussie's neck as well and calls him a libertine. Harold Pinker steps forward to protect Gussie, and after Spode hits Pinker on the nose, Pinker, an expert boxer, knocks him out. Spode soon wakes up, but is knocked out again, by Emerald. Gussie leaves Madeline for Emerald, and Spode proposes to Madeline. She says that she must marry Bertie to reward his love for her, but Spode and Jeeves convince her that Bertie came to Totleigh to steal Sir Watkyn Bassett's black amber statuette, not out of love for her. Madeline accepts Spode's proposal.[13]
In Much Obliged, Jeeves, which takes place at Brinkley Court, Spode has been invited by Bertie's Aunt Dahlia to Brinkley for his skills as an orator. He gives speeches in support of the Conservative candidate for Market Snodsbury, Harold "Ginger" Winship. As Spode's fiancée, Madeline goes with him. After the success of his speeches, Spode considers standing for election himself for the House of Commons, which would require him to relinquish his title. Madeline, who wanted to gain the title Lady Sidcup, breaks their engagement, and says she will marry Bertie instead. After being hit by a potato at a lively candidate debate, Spode changes his mind about standing for Parliament and decides to retain his title, leading to a reconciliation between him and Madeline. They are still engaged at the end of the novel.[14]
Although Spode regularly threatens to harm others, he is generally the one who gets injured. In The Code of the Woosters, when Spode advances to attack Gussie, Gussie manages to hit him on the head with an oil painting. Spode's head goes through the painting, and while he is briefly stunned, Bertie envelops him in a sheet. Bertie then hits Spode with a vase, but gets grabbed by Spode; Bertie frees himself by burning Spode with a cigarette.[15] In other novels, Spode is knocked out three times: he is hit with a cosh by Bertie's Aunt Dahlia in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, he is punched by Harold Pinker in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, and Emerald Stoker smashes a china basin on his head in the same book. He is also hit in the eye with a potato at a candidate debate in Much Obliged, Jeeves.[16]
When Bertie Wooster rebukes Spode in The Code of the Woosters (1938), he mocks Spode's black shorts, calling them "footer bags" (football shorts):
"It is about time", I proceeded, "that some public-spirited person came along and told you where you got off. The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you're someone. You hear them shouting 'Heil, Spode!' and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: 'Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?'"[19]
Like Mosley, Spode inherited a title upon the death of a relative; unlike Mosley, who inherited his baronetcy in 1928 (which entitled him to be called Sir) before forming his fascist group, Spode did not inherit his earldom (which made him Lord Sidcup) until after forming his group. Spode leaves the Black Shorts after gaining his title.
In the television series Endeavour (series five episode four – "Colours"), there is a reference to "Spode and Webley" being shot as fascists. (Webley is another fictional fascist leader, from Aldous Huxley's Point Counter Point, and unlike Spode does end up being assassinated.)
Adaptations
Television
The flag of the Black Shorts in the Jeeves and Wooster television series.
In the 1990–1993 television series Jeeves and Wooster, Spode was portrayed by John Turner.[20] In this series, Spode, as the leader of the Black Shorts, is depicted as having an appearance somewhat similar to Mussolini. The Black Shorts are portrayed as a tiny group of around a dozen men and teenage boys dressed in uniforms like those of the Sturmabteilung. Their flag is similar in design to the flag of the British Union of Fascists (which used the party's symbol, the Flash and Circle) and has the same flag colour scheme as the National Socialists.
Members of the Black Shorts comprise the small, audience to whom Spode makes loud, dramatic Hitler-like speeches in which he announces bizarre statements of policy, such as giving each citizen at birth a British-made bicycle and umbrella. He also makes several statements revolving around root vegetables. In the original stories, none of Spode's speeches are depicted and no other members of his group make an appearance. In both the television series and Wodehouse novels, Spode has a secret recorded in the Junior Ganymede Club's book, involving a women's lingerie shop named Eulalie.
Stage
In the 1975 musical Jeeves, Spode was portrayed by John Turner, who also played Spode in the television series Jeeves and Wooster. Differing from the novels, Spode is referred to as Sir Roderick Spode in the musical.[21] The character was dropped from the 1996 rewrite titled By Jeeves, in which the closest equivalent character is Cyrus Budge III Jnr, who is original to the musical.[22]
In the 2013 play Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense, in which the events of The Code of the Woosters are reenacted by Bertie, Jeeves, and Aunt Dahlia's butler Seppings, Spode is portrayed by Seppings.[23]
Radio
In the 1973–1981 radio drama series What Ho! Jeeves, Spode was voiced by James Villiers (The Code of the Woosters) and Paul Eddington (Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves).[24] Spode is mentioned in the What Ho, Jeeves! adaptation of Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit but does not have a speaking role. His actions are described by other characters.
In the 1997 L.A. Theatre Works radio adaptation of The Code of the Woosters, Spode was voiced by Martin Jarvis. Jarvis also voiced Jeeves in the same production, which was recorded live before an audience.[25]
Jeeves is a fictional character in a series of comedic short stories and novels by English author P. G. Wodehouse. Jeeves is the highly competent valet of a wealthy and idle young Londoner named Bertie Wooster. First appearing in print in 1915, Jeeves continued to feature in Wodehouse's work until his last completed novel Aunts Aren't Gentlemen in 1974, a span of 60 years.
Agatha Gregson, née Wooster, later Lady Worplesdon, is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories of the British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being best known as Bertie Wooster's Aunt Agatha. Haughty and overbearing, Aunt Agatha wants Bertie to marry a wife she finds suitable, though she never manages to get Bertie married, thanks to Jeeves's interference.
Bertram Wilberforce Wooster is a fictional character in the comedic Jeeves stories created by British author P. G. Wodehouse. An amiable English gentleman and one of the "idle rich", Bertie appears alongside his valet, Jeeves, whose intelligence manages to save Bertie or one of his friends from numerous awkward situations. Bertie Wooster and Jeeves have been described as "one of the great comic double-acts of all time".
Augustus "Gussie" Fink-Nottle is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves novels of comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being a lifelong friend of Jeeves's master Bertie Wooster and a country member of the Drones Club. He wears horn-rimmed spectacles and studies newts.
Dahlia Travers is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories of English comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being best known as Bertie Wooster's bonhomous, red-faced Aunt Dahlia. She is much beloved by her nephew, in contrast with her sister, Bertie's Aunt Agatha.
Madeline Bassett is a fictional character in the Jeeves stories by English comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being an excessively sentimental and fanciful young woman to whom Bertie Wooster intermittently, and reluctantly, finds himself engaged.
Right Ho, Jeeves is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, the second full-length novel featuring the popular characters Jeeves and Bertie Wooster, after Thank You, Jeeves. It was first published in the United Kingdom on 5 October 1934 by Herbert Jenkins, London, and in the United States on 15 October 1934 by Little, Brown and Company, Boston, under the title Brinkley Manor. It had also been sold to the Saturday Evening Post, in which it appeared in serial form from 23 December 1933 to 27 January 1934, and in England in the Grand Magazine from April to September 1934. Wodehouse had already started planning this sequel while working on Thank You, Jeeves.
Much Obliged, Jeeves is a comic novel by P. G. Wodehouse, published in the United Kingdom by Barrie & Jenkins, London, and in the United States by Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York under the name Jeeves and the Tie That Binds. Both editions were published on the same day, 15 October 1971, which was Wodehouse's 90th birthday.
By Jeeves, originally Jeeves, is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and lyrics and book by Alan Ayckbourn. It is based on the series of novels and short stories by P. G. Wodehouse that centre around the character of Bertie Wooster and his loyal valet, Jeeves.
"Comrade Bingo" is a short story by P. G. Wodehouse, and features the young gentleman Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves. The story was published in The Strand Magazine in London in May 1922, and in Cosmopolitan in New York that same month. The story was also included in the 1923 collection The Inimitable Jeeves as two separate chapters, "Comrade Bingo" and "Bingo Has a Bad Goodwood".
Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, published in the United States on 22 March 1963 by Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, and in the United Kingdom on 16 August 1963 by Herbert Jenkins, London. It is the ninth of eleven novels featuring Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves.
The Code of the Woosters is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published on 7 October 1938, in the United Kingdom by Herbert Jenkins, London, and in the United States by Doubleday, Doran, New York. It was previously serialised in The Saturday Evening Post (US) from 16 July to 3 September 1938, illustrated by Wallace Morgan, and in the London Daily Mail from 14 September to 6 October 1938.
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit is a comic novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on 15 October 1954 by Herbert Jenkins, London and in the United States on 23 February 1955 by Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, under the title Bertie Wooster Sees It Through. It is the seventh novel featuring Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves.
Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense is a play written by David and Robert Goodale based on the 1938 novel The Code of the Woosters by P. G. Wodehouse. After try-out performances at the Richmond Theatre and the Theatre Royal, Brighton in October 2013, the play opened later that month at the West End's Duke of York's Theatre. The production won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 2014.
"Jeeves Saves the Cow-Creamer" is the first episode of the second series of the 1990s British comedy television series Jeeves and Wooster. It is also called "The Silver Jug". It first aired in the UK on 14 April 1991 on ITV. Filming took place at Highclere Castle which was the principal location for Totleigh Towers.
"The Bassetts' Fancy Dress Ball" is the second episode of the second series of the 1990s British comedy television series Jeeves and Wooster. It is also called "A Plan for Gussie". It first aired in the UK on 21 April 1991 on ITV.
"Aunt Dahlia, Cornelia And Madeline" is the sixth episode of the third series of the 1990s British comedy television series Jeeves and Wooster. It is also called "Comrade Bingo". It first aired on 3 May 1992 on ITV.
"Jeeves Makes an Omelette" is a short story by P. G. Wodehouse, and features the young gentleman Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves. The story was published in the Star Weekly in Canada in August 1958. The story was also included in the 1959 collection A Few Quick Ones.
What Ho! Jeeves is a series of radio dramas based on some of the Jeeves short stories and novels written by P. G. Wodehouse, starring Michael Hordern as the titular Jeeves and Richard Briers as Bertie Wooster.
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