Barmy in Wonderland

The Drones Club

by P.G. Wodehouse, Simon Vance (Narrator)

One of P. G. Wodehouse's most enticing later works, Barmy in Wonderland is a gem of a novel from the master of social satire and comedy. Cyril Fotheringay-Phipps, known to his friends as Barmy, has made a poor decision. He has invested ten thousand dollars in a stage production that seems doomed from the start in order to be near the woman of his dreams-Miss Dinty Moore. Will he find true love, or merely lose a fortune? Featuring a cast of sharply drawn characters, from haughty film stars and monstrous producers to detestable critics and total divas, Barmy in Wonderland is a brilliant satire on life behind the curtains

Genres: Humor, Fiction, Classics, British Literature, Audiobook, Comedy, 20th Century

Audiobook

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE, was a comic writer who enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and continues to be widely read over 40 years after his death. Despite the political and social upheavals that occurred during his life, much of which was spent in France and the United States, Wodehouse's main canvas remained that of prewar English upper-class society, reflecting his birth, education, and youthful writing career.

An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by more recent writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett. Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea", a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.

Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song Bill in Kern's Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin/Romberg musical Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers (1928).

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun Wodehouse tale about the pitfalls of producing a play.
Cyril Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps (of the Drones Club fame) inherits a nice nest egg from his uncle and gets immediately hoodwinked into investing in a new theater production starring his boozy actor friend, Mervyn Potter.



The story was a lot better than I initially thought it would be, especially since I know relatively little about the theater - except that it's an iffy market for investment. But apparently, that was more than what poor Barmy knew.



Of course, it wouldn't be a Wodehouse story if there wasn't a bit of romance and a full cast of wacky characters. It's clever, humorous, entertaining, and one of the better (imho) stand-alone stories that I've read of his.
Recommended for fans of P.G. Wodehouse.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

In order to win the woman of his dreams, Cyril "Barmy" Fotheringay-Phipps invests ten thousand dollars into a stinker of a play to be close to her. Will he ever see any of his money back and win his woman's heart?

That P.G. Wodehouse is a sly one. Just as he managed to make golf interesting in The Clicking of Cuthbert, he managed to make me care about theater with Barmy in Wonderland.

Barmy in Wonderland features a few of the usual Wodehouse plot devices. You get the budding love between Barmy and Eileen "Dinty" Moore, the broken engagement between Mervyn Potter and his love, and hilarious drunken escapades featuring Potter and Phipps.

It's amazing how many interesting characters Wodehouse creates and then never uses again. To the best of my knowledge, Barmy, a member of the fabled Drones Club, is the only one who appears in other stories. It's a shame, too. Dinty Moore is strong female lead, like many of Wodehouse's women. Mervyn Potter, that hilarious drunken bastard, could have easily spawned stories on his own. I even enjoyed the two sleazy play producers, Lehman and McClure.

Oh, and I should mention my favorite line before I wrap this up: "She was so tight she could carry an armload of eels up five flights of stairs and not drop a single one."

As usual, everything works out in the end, as it normally does in Wodehouseland. The joy is in the journey, not the destination. While this one isn't my favorite Wodehouse, or even close, it's still hilarious and an easy three.

[Kuszma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tulajdonképpen az összes Wodehouse-regény értelmezhető úgy, mint a káosz és a rend híveinek eposzi összecsapása. A káosz képviselői lehetnek bugyuta, de jó szándékú fiatalemberek, akik külsejükben és intellektusukban alig különböznek egy mirelit makrélától, vagy kezelhetetlen, meggondolatlan csibészek, akiktől kitelik, hogy puszta szórakozásból magukra gyújtják a bungalót. Egyikükkel se szívesen bútoroznánk össze - ám a rend prominenseivel se nagyon, akik jobbára sótlan, számító alakok, akiket csak permanens ásításba merevedve lehet hallgatni. A küzdelem tétje pedig hatalmas - ha ugyanis utóbbiak diadalmaskodnak, akkor a létezés unalmas, szürke sós mocsár lesz, amelyben nem érdemes élni. Ha viszont előbbiek... Nos, akkor lehet, figyelmetlenségből vagy szimplán szórakozásból ránk gyújtanak egy bungalót. Nem is tudom, melyiknek örüljek jobban.

Ha kedvet csináltam ezzel a bevezetővel a szerző műveihez, leszögezem: ne ezzel kezdjétek. Ez a kötet ugyanis eleven példája annak, milyen, ha egy írónak nincsen kedve írni, de muszáj. Az eleje még csak-csak: a mindenfajta produktív munkára (sőt: hovatovább az emberi életre) alkalmatlan angol díszpinty, Pupák szerencsétlenkedése az amerikai szállodaiparban szórakoztató nyitány, csakhogy utána hősünk örökséghez jut, és bekerül a Broadway forgatagába, amivel Wodehouse mintha nemigen tudna mit kezdeni - és meggyőződésem, hogy egy idő után nem is akar. Csak egymásra hányja a szokásos bonyodalmakat a megszokott fura szereplőkkel, a fatális véletlenekkel, no meg a kiváltképp életszerűtlen romantikus szállal. Utóbbi különösen testidegen volt nekem: jó fej ez a Dinty, bírnám, de egyszerűen képtelen vagyok feldolgozni, miért támad benne vonzalom Pupák iránt. Izgatják a férfiak, akiknek az IQ-ja egy brokkolival vetekedik? Csak valami sajátos anyai érzés magyarázhatja ezt, de ez meg nekem elég egészségtelennek, mi több, pervertáltnak tűnik. Akárhogy is, mire elvánszorogtunk a végkifejletig, bennem nem sok érdeklődés maradt az iránt, hogy akkor most kinek lesz jó és kinek nem. De azért persze az arra érdemesek megint kéz a kézben belovagoltak a lemenő napba. Egészségükre.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*

Great fun in this Wodehouse novel about NY theater business. If only this had been narrated by Jonathan Cecil, it might have been a 5*! Not that Simon Vance's narration was bad (far from it!).

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Douglas Adams dubbed P.G. Wodehouse as the greatest comic writer of all time. "Barmy" is my first taste of Wodehouse, and shows an author in control of all aspects of the game, from the unusual similes that clearly inspired Adams to his impeccable comic timing to well - (if broadly) drawn characters and a plot just coherent enough to keep the whole farce together. It took me about 10 pages to get hooked, and afterwards the next 216 seemed to fly by. A pleasant, smart, funny novel that makes me want to look into the rest of Wodehouse's oeuvre.

[Mike Jennings · Rating 5 out of 5]

P.G. Wodehouse tales, to me, are a little like a comedic version of Sherlock Holmes adventures. What I mean by that is that they are very British (even though the author lived in, and sets many stories in, the USA) and there are similar choices of characters. Conan Doyle's villains are clever, sinister, scheming and from all walks of life, Wodehouse's are pompous and stupid but equally scheming and mainly from the upper classes. Perhaps it's only my opinion there, they both have a great charm, it's only that one intrigues you and the other makes you smile.

Don't read too many one after the other, though, Wodehouse's world wears thin rather quickly, what!

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

If there was one thing Wodehouse knew well, it was the New York theatre scene, since his first great success, before he became a popular novelist, was writing lyrics for New York musicals. He once had five running on Broadway at once, and claimed that his royalties from the song he contributed to Showboat would keep him in whisky and cigarettes for life.

This isn't the musical theatre, though, but the "legitimate" theatre. Cyril Fotheringay-Phipps, known to his friends in the Drones Club as "Barmy" because, even in that dim-witted environment, he stood out as particularly slow, loses his job as a hotel clerk thanks to the drunken shenanigans of a Hollywood actor who is in New York to perform in a play. Through a series of events involving a supposed fortune teller and a young woman who Barmy thinks is his destiny, Barmy ends up investing a legacy he recently got from his grandfather into the play that his friend is performing in.

There follow confusion, conflict, drama (more offstage than on), the looming threat of failure and some actually rather cunning work by Barmy, who isn't always quite as green as he is cabbage-looking, ably assisted by friends and well-wishers. It's as bright and sparkling as a good musical, like all of Wodehouse's stuff, and if the Hollywood actor sounds a bit like every English-literature-and-the-Bible-quoting smart young fellow in these books, well, it's an amusing way to sound.

Even though this was published in 1952 and refers to the contemporary actor Gregory Peck, whose career began in 1939, it's still, somehow, implicitly set in the pre-war world of Wodehouse. Barmy is still a young man, for one thing, as he was in the pre-war Drones stories, and a young woman refers to the Volstead Act (the Prohibition law), which might have been on her mother's mind a generation earlier but would hardly have been brought up by someone who was young in 1952. In fact, the book is based on a play by Wodehouse's friend George S. Kaufman, written in 1925. (Wodehouse split the royalties with Kaufman 50/50, in contrast to the plot point late in the novel where a novella writer has to sue for a share in the proceeds of the play, which was apparently based on his work without permission.) And yet it feels entirely Wodehousian from start to finish, even if nobody pretends to be someone else.

It's a cheerful short novel, and I solidly recommend it.

[Danette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Silly but with a satisfying ending. I enjoyed reading a first edition.

2024 A humorous book

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny in places, but dragged in others.

[Ian Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cyril ‘Barmy’ Fotheringay-Phipps has been despatched from his London flat and his patronage of the Drones Gentleman’s Club at the insistence of his Uncle to learn the ropes of the Hotel business where due to some spirits and a chance meeting with actor Mervyn Potter a chalet is unfortunately burned to the ground.

On being discharged from his position as desk clerk Potter secures Barmy an opening as a Broadway producer which he accepts as he has fallen in love with the production secretary, one Dinty Moore.

It true Wodehouse fashion engagement fall like the leaves in August and the play ‘Sacrifice’ changes hands more often than a clock maker. All in all not the greatest Wodehouse farce but it is quite a legacy to live up to. One of Wodehouse’s poor days still greater than the best days of any of the writers whom can only beat him on any literacy list by virtue of their position in the alphabet.

[Arthur Pierce · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a curious and very unusual Wodehouse novel, in that it's based on a play by another author. The first third of the story is pure Wodehouse, but then it abruptly turns into George S. Kaufman's 1925 play, THE BUTTER AND EGG MAN. Not only does it retain the plot of the stage work, but several characters have the same names as in the play, and much of the dialogue is Kaufman's as well. Wodehouse's hero hails from London, however, replacing the Ohio native from the play that Kaufman created. So we have the almost surreal situation of a purely Wodehousian character transplanted into an established work of a rather different nature created by someone else. I found it jarring, but never unpleasant. The play has been filmed numerous times, so there were no surprises in the plot, but it does somehow work, in a strange sort of way.

[Bettie]

Description: The Wodehouse series continues—a sparkling novel from the master of hijinks and social comedy

A penniless Englishman falls in love with a lively American girl, loses her, finds her again, is rejected, but finally discovers true love after many comic adventures. In Barmy in Wonderland this classic plot of 1920s musical comedy, so familiar to Wodehouse from his own stage works, becomes the basis for a brilliant satire on theatrical life. Featuring monstrous producers, vain film stars, impossible critics, temperamental actresses and a whole chorus of sharply drawn minor parts, this is one of Wodehouse's most enticing later novels.
With each volume edited and reset and printed on Scottish cream-wove, acid-free paper, sewn and bound in cloth, these novels are elegant additions to the legions of Wodehouse fans’ libraries.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book from Wodehouse's great period i.e. about 1920-1960. This one actually came out in 1952. It stars a fairly minor character from the Jeeves/ Drones club stories Cyril "Barmy" Fotheringay-Phipps, in his only lead role in a full length novel. The wonderland of he title is actually the Theatre-land of Broadway, Barmy buys into a hopeless show and makes it a hit. The best character in the book is actually not Barmy but movie star, lead actor and dipsomaniac Mervyn Potter. The story is distinctly hackneyed, you'll have have heard it all before many times especially if you've seen any Hollywood musicals of the 1930s, but Wodehouse of course makes the thing wholly enjoyable, just not quite up to his very best standards.

[Elisha Condie · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a fantastic title! The book was very good, and very funny, but definitely not my favorite Wodehouse ever.

This book is about Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps, one of Bertie Wooster's pals from the Drones Club. Old Barmy ends up investing all his money in a stinker of a Broadway show just to be near a girl he falls in love with after meeting her briefly on the sidewalk.

Typical of Wodehouse, there are many complications and laughs and it all works out in the end. I just like it when things are confusing in a funny way and then it all works out in the end. If I could take on the problems of a Wodehouse character I'd do it in a heartbeat.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

P. G. at his delirious best. In particular, I liked the interaction between the drunken movie star and the slightly dense English gent. It's a love story, it involves a theatrical production, and it is confected by the Master. Need I say more?

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I've read a fair number of Bertie and Jeeves stories, I haven't read much else of Wodehouse. It took me a while to get into this story, but once I got into the groove, it went very quickly, and was as enjoyable as ever.

[Marty Reeder · Rating 4 out of 5]

When the school librarian asks the faculty to check out a book to read over the summer and report back on when we return, you can either add to your growing list of guilt books that you’ve committed to read through book clubs, recommendations, etcetera but never quite finished … or you can see what P.G. Wodehouse titles she has in her catalogue. A quick search turned up Barmy in Wonderland, and I knew that I had a guilt-free book to read as a break from all my (self) assigned reading homework.

I had never heard of this particular Wodehouse title, but when one writes 90 something different novels/stories, one must show a forgiving spirit considering an occasional bout of ignorance on behalf of one’s adoring audience.

In this—always convoluted—Wodehouse tale, Barmy unexpectedly inherits a significant chunk of cash and gets talked into investing into a Broadway musical as a producer. Along the way, he meets and falls for a smashing young lady. He negotiates the tricky and unpredictable whims of a capricious celebrity. He follows the circuit of the show in its infancy playing in the countryside as a precursor to Broadway. He participates in a post-show celebration that is more of a funeral service mixed with a grievance session where his positive feedback/criticisms are ignored/dismissed. He takes a risk and goes all in by edging out his partners, making the proper adjustments to give the stifled musical life. He hits the big time and … then discovers the messy legal ramifications of success on Broadway.

Is that enough going on in one story? Plenty. I mean, right when I thought Wodehouse had his sensible finale, he throws one more twist in that puts a few more chapters of life, so even the veteran Wodehouse reader will find unforeseen plot paths to explore.

While the characters have their regular Wodehouse charm and vivacity, I think I was mainly pleased with the spoof on Broadway, showing us the definitely unromanticized behind-the-scenes details of what makes (and what doesn’t) a musical tick in the world of Broadway of that day. If there is any comedic novelist that could accurately satirize the world of musicals, it would be Plum, who spent a huge chunk of time in that sphere writing lyrics for some of the most popular musicals of the day. (Later he would move to Hollywood and write dialogue for characters in films—similarly, his short stories satirizing Hollywood are delightfully overboard yet pointed.)

Ultimately, Barmy somehow manages to navigate us through the swamp—er, sorry—Wonderland of Broadway. And as long as our school library keeps refreshing its 20th century British comic novelist collection, I see no reason why our librarian can’t request read and reports from the faculty every couple of months!

[Joe Stevens · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a quirky Wodehouse that takes place in the world of American theater rather than English castles. PG had co-written any number of plays with notable lights of the theatrical scribe community. He was often the story guy to the song guys and did quite well. Over time theater changed while Wodehouse stayed largely the same. His play writing career ran for roughly 25 years and mostly ending by the mid 1930s. Thankfully for his fans this left more time to pen the hundredish books that he left as his primary legacy.

In the early 1950s, Wodehouse started mulling his theatrical successes. In the summer of 1952, Wodehouse and Guy Bolton co-wrote Carry On Jeeves which was PG's last attempt at writing for the stage. In 1953 he wrote Bring on the Girls, a biography about his theater years. It was probably Barmy in Wonderland aka Angel Cake which was largely finished by the summer of 1951 that inspired these later efforts.

This novel is pleasant read that feels significantly more dated than most of the Wodehouse books from his prime. J&W and Blandings novels seem to float on a fairly timeless ether, but Barmy is a historical look at a very distinct time and place in New York theater that has long vanished. The early part of the book flows nicely in the Wodehouse stream of pleasant prose, but when the actual theater world ensnares Barmy the book becomes less of a joy. To be fair there are some wonderful bits of wordplay and description including a well drawn lawyer which make even the dull theater bits and the telegraphed ending worth reading.

[Carol Bakker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars means I like it —it's my default rating for genre fiction. This title isn't earth shattering, just a bit of silly fun. In the same way I read most mysteries for the "atmosphere" I read PGW for his wordsmith skills.

Cyril Fotheringay-Phipps (pronounced Fungy-Fips), nicknamed "Barmy" gambols into the world of theater. Dinty Moore made a great heroine. This action is located in America.

One scene made me chortle. Two crooked playwrights, coaxing Barmy to buy the play, give a fingernail sketch with a hilarious run-on sentence:

"So it's her bedroom and she's in a negligay, and in comes the hero through the window and says, 'Genevieve!', and she says 'Harold!', and she says 'Is it you?', and he says, 'Yah, it's me', and back and forth and back and forth, and then it comes out that the brother has died and confessed on his death-bed that it was him that dun it, and she says she loves the hero still but must stick to this guy she's married because she's the soul of honour, see, and they have a farewell scene, and suddenly in comes the husband and he thinks the hero is a burglar and he plugs him with his gun and the hero falls to the ground a corpse and the dame falls on top of him and has a fit and dies on his body. The next act's in heaven," said Mr. Lehman, going to the water-cooler.
Barmy blinked. "Heaven?"

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a rather peculiar Wodehouse - it was based on a 1925 play by George S Kaufman, and the book's royalties were split between the two writers.
Wodehouse takes a good deal of the play and re-uses it, but adds his own inimitable comments to the dialogue. I'd thought, as I was reading it, that it had more of a script air about it than one of Wodehouse's usual novels, and the adaptation factor confirms this. The scene in the hotel room that occurs after the plays awful first night is exactly what a scriptwriter would do, with its endless interruptions and host of characters; it's very reminiscent of the famous Marx Brothers scene in which more and more characters fill up a small cabin on a ocean liner, but it has a good deal more actual dialogue from all the characters, and is considerably longer.
The plot is neat enough, though nowhere near as complex as a typical Wodehouse, and there's almost an element of meanness in the way it works out at the end, which is untypical, or at least rare, in the Wodehouse canon.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woodhouse books are literary gin and tonics. You can’t remember every one that you’ve had, but some of them stand out more than others. At any rate, they are all consistently good and hit the spot. This is one of the better non-Jeeves ones. What’s interesting about this one is that, in a book about theater, the last half of the book takes place basically in one or two rooms with people running in and out slamming the doors. It would make a pretty good play—and, if he were still alive, Cary Grant would have been great as Mervin Potter, the sauced theatrical idol. Get the audio: Simon Vance does an excellent job with all of the voices. You won’t laugh out loud, but you’ll smile for the whole five hours.

[S. Suresh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Angel Cake was published under the title Barmy in Wonderland in the U.K. This is the first Wodehouse novel I’ve read that doesn’t contain a lover’s tiff or broken engagements. Cyril “Barmy” Fotheringay-Phipps' love for Eileen “Dinty” Moore is one of a kind, one that grows from strength to strength as the story progresses. Sleazy theater producers Lehman and McClure, sharp tongued Mrs. Fanny Lehman, and dipsomaniac lead actor Mervyn Potter star in this classic 1952 comedy which meanders initially, but suddenly switches to high comedic gear when their latest theater production Sacrifice is staged in Syracuse. It is pretty much a riot from then on. Easily a 3.5-star effort.

[Amy Lindberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barmy inherits a small lump of money and a friend convinces him to dump a large amount of it into a play he's acting in. Barmy falls in love with the producer's secretary and because of that is unwilling to give up on the awful show.

There's a chunk just past the middle where some scenes seem to be missing -- there ought to be a montage of how the play is tweaked, but there isn't anything.

Also, there are moments where Barmy isn't quite himself. Like, in a few scenes he does seem to have a modicum of intelligence. It's odd.

The writing style is delightful as always and it's a good laugh.

[Chet Makoski · Rating 4 out of 5]

The novel may be considered part of the expanded Drones Club canon, since the main character Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps is a member of the club. Wodehouse adapted the novel from a play, The Butter and Egg Man (1925), by George S. Kaufman and, echoing Shakespeare's dedication of his Sonnets, dedicated the US edition to "the onlie begetter of these insuing sonnets, Mr G S K".

The central character is Cyril "Barmy" Fotheringay-Phipps (pronounced "Fungy Fips"), an amiable young Englishman who falls in love with a spirited American girl named Eileen "Dinty" Moore and finds himself suddenly thrown into the daunting world of Broadway theatre after investing in a play.

[Renee · Rating 2 out of 5]

For once Wodehouse didn't work for me. Apparently he based the book on a George S. Kaufman play. I haven't seen the play, but listening to this book reminded me of a lot of 1930 stage door movie: Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler as Barmy and Dinty, John Barrymore as Potter, Eugene Pallette and William Demerest as Lehman and McClure. As a book, I ended up feeling irritated especially towards the end after a lawyer shows up. The material would work better in a visual format. Or maybe (and I hate to say it) Vance's narration dragged it down.

[Paula · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story took place in the US, centering around Barmy putting his recent inheritance into backing a play that does not seem to have what it takes to be successful. I find I prefer Wodehouse stories that take place in England, not least because this story required the British reader to do American accents.
The plus to listening to this story was that I got reminded that "Fotheringay" - as in "Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps" is pronounced "Fungy" (with a hard G). I believe I knew that at one time but had forgotten.

[Abhilash Chandrashekar · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read almost all of P. G. Wodehouse's books, and I think this is his best one. Surprisingly, most people don't think so.

In his other books, you usually have one bumbling protagonist, like Bertram Wooster, whose antics are managed by a serious character, like Jeeves.

However, this book has two such characters: Barmy and Mervin Potter. That makes for double the fun, and there's nobody to stop it.

[Ulrike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun story with lots of twits and turns. Wodehouse recycles some of his quips from book to book, which is less jarring when it's the same character (e.g., Wooster) using it, but doesn't work as well in the stand alones about a new(ish) character.

This isn't Simon Vance's best, either. I don't know how the word "Yeah," is spelled in the text, but Vance's pronunciation is odd throughout.

[Balazs Almasi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nagyon aranyos könyv, a mulattatás mellett megismertet a századforduló színházi világával is.
A romantikus szál még Wodehouse-se hoz képest is végtelenül egyszerű, de összeségében nagyon szórakoztató darab

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice to see Barmy on his own adventure across the pond. None of the Bertie Wooster hilarity, but the American characters provide a suitable counterpoint to the zaniness of members of the Drones Club.