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Uncle Fred #0.5
Uncle Fred Flits by
Uncle Fred descends upon a suburban home, completely disrupts the lives of the family by his eccentric behaviour, and brings two young lovers together. His unwilling accomplice, and a horrified spectator of this chaos, is his nephew, Pongo.
Audio Cassette
First published January 1, 1996
2 people are currently reading
237 people want to read
About the author
P.G. Wodehouse
1,691 books6,938 followersSir 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).
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).
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 28, 2023
Read as part of the short story collection Young Men in Spats.
I love Uncle Fred!
I love Uncle Fred!
October 25, 2010
This is the first time we meet Uncle Fred. Thankfully it is not the last. He is without a doubt my favorite of all.
January 3, 2018
I was lucky enough to see John Lithgow read/perform this during his one man show on Broadway, John Lithgow - Stories by Heart. This is hilarious fun.
September 10, 2019
Sunday evenings were precious family time in my childhood home. Often after a day spent at church, our family gathered to watch the Sunday (Mom-approved 😄) episodes of Masterpiece Theater. It’s where I met Our Mutual Friend, several Jane Austen films, and Jeeves and Wooster. I still love showing them to my kids—they’re all on YouTube!
Uncle Fred is quite a hilarious character, swooping in and making a jolly wreck of his poor nephew’s life in just a short 30 pages. Honestly I’m looking forward to the rest of the longer stories—Wodehouse is a perfect palate-cleanser between heftier books.
Uncle Fred is quite a hilarious character, swooping in and making a jolly wreck of his poor nephew’s life in just a short 30 pages. Honestly I’m looking forward to the rest of the longer stories—Wodehouse is a perfect palate-cleanser between heftier books.
June 7, 2019
Short, hilarious.
December 19, 2025
Uncle Fred Flits By is Wodehouse at his most buoyant, a demonstration of how controlled absurdity can feel like liberation rather than chaos.
Uncle Fred is less a character than a catalytic force—an agent of narrative anarchy whose presence dissolves social rigidity with laughter. Wodehouse constructs comedy not through plot density but through momentum, letting coincidence, misunderstanding, and social panic ripple outward with musical timing.
The prose glides. Sentences pirouette rather than march, balancing formal elegance with comic velocity. Wodehouse’s great gift is tonal generosity: nobody is truly villainous, only trapped by convention, pride, or excessive seriousness.
Uncle Fred’s irreverence becomes a corrective to social over-order, reminding readers that decorum without joy is merely farce without laughter.
The humour is rooted in class performance. Aristocratic confidence is exaggerated until it becomes parody, yet never cruel. Wodehouse mocks gently, preserving affection even as he dismantles pretension.
The pleasure of the story lies not in resolution but in witnessing how dignity collapses under the weight of its own solemnity.
In a broader sense, Uncle Fred Flits By is about the moral necessity of play.
Wodehouse suggests that happiness depends less on circumstances than on attitude, and that liberation often arrives disguised as mischief.
It is comedy as benevolence, light but enduring.
Most recommended.
Uncle Fred is less a character than a catalytic force—an agent of narrative anarchy whose presence dissolves social rigidity with laughter. Wodehouse constructs comedy not through plot density but through momentum, letting coincidence, misunderstanding, and social panic ripple outward with musical timing.
The prose glides. Sentences pirouette rather than march, balancing formal elegance with comic velocity. Wodehouse’s great gift is tonal generosity: nobody is truly villainous, only trapped by convention, pride, or excessive seriousness.
Uncle Fred’s irreverence becomes a corrective to social over-order, reminding readers that decorum without joy is merely farce without laughter.
The humour is rooted in class performance. Aristocratic confidence is exaggerated until it becomes parody, yet never cruel. Wodehouse mocks gently, preserving affection even as he dismantles pretension.
The pleasure of the story lies not in resolution but in witnessing how dignity collapses under the weight of its own solemnity.
In a broader sense, Uncle Fred Flits By is about the moral necessity of play.
Wodehouse suggests that happiness depends less on circumstances than on attitude, and that liberation often arrives disguised as mischief.
It is comedy as benevolence, light but enduring.
Most recommended.
Read
April 12, 2020Getting back to WOdehouse after school, almost. The lockdown gave me sometime off the mad office commute to read a little each day - the kind i wanted to do always. Having collected tomes of books from Blossom Book Store, Gangarams and others, with the intent to read and re-read them some day, it took the virus to place them in my hands and get me reading.
I began with the first story - Uncle Fred Flits by. As always, the grand old man never failed to amuse, eliciting a few loud laughs during the entire experience. Stephen Fry says this about Wodehouse, “His language and writing are something that oscillates between the reader and him” That’s what makes them come alive.
This short gem took me back to the days in school when we relished talking about Blanding’s Castle and wishing that we could think and speak like Jeeves. It introduced Pongo and Lord Ickenham and their forced entry into one of the houses in the suburbs of London, and their enactment first, of two people had come in to clip the parrot’s claws, to then becoming jolly imposters as masters of the house. Pongo, sadly, is forced to play deaf mute and watch over the parrot most of the time, while his head nearly bursts with all the happenings going on around him.
I began with the first story - Uncle Fred Flits by. As always, the grand old man never failed to amuse, eliciting a few loud laughs during the entire experience. Stephen Fry says this about Wodehouse, “His language and writing are something that oscillates between the reader and him” That’s what makes them come alive.
This short gem took me back to the days in school when we relished talking about Blanding’s Castle and wishing that we could think and speak like Jeeves. It introduced Pongo and Lord Ickenham and their forced entry into one of the houses in the suburbs of London, and their enactment first, of two people had come in to clip the parrot’s claws, to then becoming jolly imposters as masters of the house. Pongo, sadly, is forced to play deaf mute and watch over the parrot most of the time, while his head nearly bursts with all the happenings going on around him.
October 11, 2025
Fun little short story -- I love Wodehouse so much its unreal.
Very short, finished in <20 mins
Very short, finished in <20 mins
Want to read
November 7, 2019Added 2/5/13.
On the cover of this book, it says: "J. Donald Walters reads The Delightful World of P.G. Wodehouse" - "Uncle Fred Flits By".
(It's hard to decipher from the small picture but that's what it says. See my "Further Notes" at the end of this review.)
I first heard the story, "Uncle Fred Flits By", referred to while listening to the audio-book: _Drama_, which is John Lithgow's autobiography.
SEE THE STORY AT YOUTUBE (with David Niven):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHXbP...
Four Star Playhouse - "Uncle Fred Flits By" (Colorized) by P.G. Wodehouse
LISTEN TO THE STORY AT:
http://www.k5nd.net/uncle-fred-flits-by/
(I discovered the above site by doing an exhaustive search of the Internet!)
===========================================
"Uncle Fred Flits By"
""Uncle Fred Flits By" is a short story by P. G. Wodehouse, which first appeared in the United States in the July 1935 edition of Redbook, and in the United Kingdom in the December 1935 issue of the Strand. It was included in the collection Young Men in Spats (1936).
It marks the first appearances of Pongo Twistleton and his mischievous Uncle Fred, who would go on to appear in four novels, including two visits to Blandings Castle.
FROM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Fr...
===========================================
See the following links:
IMDb:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0581956/
Review of John Lithgow's one-man show Stories by Heart
http://www.backstage.com/review/ny-th...
(This is Back Stage's review of the show's original run in spring 2008.)
Lithgow's Lincoln Center performance:
http://www.lct.org/showMain.htm?id=187
http://www.lct.org/mediaPlayer.htm?id=12
Comedy Playhouse:
http://www.tv.com/shows/comedy-playho...
http://www.tv.com/shows/comedy-playho...
LISTEN TO THE STORY AT:
http://www.k5nd.net/uncle-fred-flits-by/
FURTHER NOTES:
I found the following at Amazon:
Uncle Fred Flits by (The Delightful World of P.G. Wodehouse)
[Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]
P. G. Wodehouse (Author), J. Donald Walters (Narrator)
FROM: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0916...
The narrator named above, J. Donald Walters, is also known as Kriyananda, according to the following page at Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Kr...
Wiki says: "Kriyananda, born James Donald Walters..."
Wiki also says that he "established a new Swami order..."
Therefore, I conclude that the name Swami Kriyananda is the narrator of the audio, "Uncle Fred Flits By", written by P.G. Wodehouse.
On the cover of this book, it says: "J. Donald Walters reads The Delightful World of P.G. Wodehouse" - "Uncle Fred Flits By".
(It's hard to decipher from the small picture but that's what it says. See my "Further Notes" at the end of this review.)
I first heard the story, "Uncle Fred Flits By", referred to while listening to the audio-book: _Drama_, which is John Lithgow's autobiography.
SEE THE STORY AT YOUTUBE (with David Niven):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHXbP...
Four Star Playhouse - "Uncle Fred Flits By" (Colorized) by P.G. Wodehouse
LISTEN TO THE STORY AT:
http://www.k5nd.net/uncle-fred-flits-by/
(I discovered the above site by doing an exhaustive search of the Internet!)
===========================================
"Uncle Fred Flits By"
""Uncle Fred Flits By" is a short story by P. G. Wodehouse, which first appeared in the United States in the July 1935 edition of Redbook, and in the United Kingdom in the December 1935 issue of the Strand. It was included in the collection Young Men in Spats (1936).
It marks the first appearances of Pongo Twistleton and his mischievous Uncle Fred, who would go on to appear in four novels, including two visits to Blandings Castle.
FROM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Fr...
===========================================
See the following links:
IMDb:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0581956/
Review of John Lithgow's one-man show Stories by Heart
http://www.backstage.com/review/ny-th...
(This is Back Stage's review of the show's original run in spring 2008.)
Lithgow's Lincoln Center performance:
http://www.lct.org/showMain.htm?id=187
http://www.lct.org/mediaPlayer.htm?id=12
Comedy Playhouse:
http://www.tv.com/shows/comedy-playho...
http://www.tv.com/shows/comedy-playho...
LISTEN TO THE STORY AT:
http://www.k5nd.net/uncle-fred-flits-by/
FURTHER NOTES:
I found the following at Amazon:
Uncle Fred Flits by (The Delightful World of P.G. Wodehouse)
[Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]
P. G. Wodehouse (Author), J. Donald Walters (Narrator)
FROM: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0916...
The narrator named above, J. Donald Walters, is also known as Kriyananda, according to the following page at Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Kr...
Wiki says: "Kriyananda, born James Donald Walters..."
Wiki also says that he "established a new Swami order..."
Therefore, I conclude that the name Swami Kriyananda is the narrator of the audio, "Uncle Fred Flits By", written by P.G. Wodehouse.
December 30, 2007
A hilarious short story by P.G. Wodehouse - loved it!
November 14, 2009
nice...
March 8, 2012
J Donald Walters does a lovely reading of P. G. Wodehouse.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews