Bright Young Things discussion

UK based BYT'ers might be interested in this television programme on BBC4 tonight - and inevitably repeated and on iPlayer too....

Wodehouse in Exile
Mon Mar 25, 9-10.15pm, BBC4

Was P.G. Wodehouse a traitor, as so many people thought for so many years? Apparently not; the release of the Cullen report by MI5 last year finally cleared the ‘Jeeves and Wooster’ creator of the long-held belief by many that he had consciously assisted the Germans in WWII, paving the way for this one-off drama by Nigel Williams.

Its initial theatricality and wooden staging fail to engage, undermining a terrific true story, but as that story begins to unfold things pick up no end, and we begin to understand how one very unworldly Englishman could be so easily manipulated into a position that would lead to his downfall and exile. Tim Pigott-Smith plays Wodehouse with aplomb, frustrating us with his naivety, and it’s left to Zoe Wanamaker’s spiky and sassy Ethel Woodhouse to provide clues as to why he would have so foolishly walked into such an obvious trap.

Let it draw you in and you’ll be rewarded by a nuanced, thoughtful story that has a rare impact.

http://www.timeout.com/london/tv-and-...

Thanks Nigeyb, already set to record.

Well, hope to see that someday soon on PBS.

This times nicely with the publication of the letters book.

I've only watched the first 30 minutes so far - I have the rest recorded - and so far, so wonderful. Very well acted and a touching dramatisation of how PG Wodehouse and his wife were separated after the invasion of France. At present PG Wodehouse is a prisoner in a German camp. Clearly we are leading up to those events that resulted in him being suspected a traitor - although, as we now know, he was subsequently completely exonerated by MI5. His decisions being, at worst, naïve and foolish. A great relief as he's one of my favourite writers - as well as being a delight to read.

I watched it last night and thought it was wonderful. I ended up feeling desperately sorry for PG Wodehouse (though he was very naive).

Finished it now. Absolutely superb. Very moving. Very credible. Great performances from Tim Pigott-Smith and Zoe Wanamaker.

It seems laughable now that PG Wodehouse could ever have been accused of treachery and yet this drama effectively explained how that scenario came about.

His crime was to have been released a few months early from an internment camp in 1941, whereupon he was enthusiastically used by the German propaganda machine to make a series of radio broadcasts to tell the Americans about life in the camp. PG Wodehouse naïvely thought his broadcasts would show the world unbroken British resolve. Back in London the response was anger. Sadly he never lived long enough to see the accusations finally disproved when MI5 eventually made the contents of the Cullen report public and was apparently plagued by questions about the wartime broadcasts for the rest of his days.

It's on iPlayer now.

P G Wodehouse was a victim of 'trial by tabloid'. The broadcasts themselves were innocuous, but the fact that he made them at all was seen by some people as collaboration with the Nazis. They were only broadcast in the USA, so few British people would have known what he said and believed what they read in the newspapers about him.
The investigation by the security services exonerated him completely. It might have been better for him if it hadn't, because then there would have been a high-profile trial and he would have had a chance to explain.