Characters in the Drones Club Stories
The following is a list of recurring or notable fictional characters in the Drones Club stories of P. G. Wodehouse, listed in alphabetical order by surname.
| Lists of P. G. Wodehouse characters |
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| Characters in all Wodehouse stories |
The Drones Club stories, which follow the adventures of various club members, include stories not already included in other Wodehouse series. Most of the stories in the Drones Club series star Freddie Widgeon or Bingo Little.
Members of the Drones Club who appear in other series, such as Bertie Wooster (Jeeves stories) and Freddie Threepwood (Blandings Castle stories), can be found on lists for those series. For a list of Drones Club members, see the club members list.
Rosie M. Banks
Rosie M. Banks (also called Rosie Little) is a recurring fictional character in the Drones Club stories. She is the wife of Bingo Little and a romance novelist. She also appears in several Jeeves stories.
Lord Blicester
Rodney (or Joseph) Widgeon, Lord Blicester, is a recurring fictional character in the Drones Club stories. He is the uncle of Freddie Widgeon. He pays Freddie an allowance, as Freddie is his late sister's son.
Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps
Cyril "Barmy" Fotheringay-Phipps (pronounced "Fungy Fips") is a fictional character in the Drones Club stories. A tall, willowy figure with fair hair, he is the amiable nephew of Theodore, Lord Binghamton and a member of the Drones Club. On one Boat Race night, he was arrested in Leicester Square by his younger brother George, a policeman.[1] He attends the engagement dinner of Gussie Fink-Nottle in The Code of the Woosters.
He appears in the Drones Club short story "Tried in the Furnace" (collected in Young Men in Spats), in which he is in a cross-talk act with Pongo Twistleton, and has a brief appearance with Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright in "The Shadow Passes" (collected in Nothing Serious). He stars in the novel Barmy in Wonderland. He is mentioned in "The Fat of the Land" and Cocktail Time.
Barmy is mentioned in several Jeeves stories: Right Ho, Jeeves (ch. 17), The Code of the Woosters (ch. 7), Joy in the Morning (ch. 8), The Mating Season (ch. 2), and Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (ch. 6).
In the television series Jeeves and Wooster, Barmy was portrayed by Adam Blackwood in series one and by Martin Clunes in series two.
Algy Little
Algernon "Algy" Aubrey Little is a recurring fictional character in the Drones Club stories. He is the infant son of Bingo Little and Rosie Little.
Bingo Little
Richard P. Little, known as Bingo, is a member of the Drones Club and a recurring fictional character in the Drones Club stories. Bingo also appears in many Jeeves stories.
McGarry
McGarry is a fictional character in the Drones Club stories. He is the only named bartender at the Drones Club and can estimate the weight of anything simply by looking at it. McGarry is mentioned in "The Fat of the Land" and "Stylish Stouts".[2] He is also seen listening while Bingo Little confides in Bertie Wooster in the Jeeves story "Scoring off Jeeves", and appears in the Freddie Threepwood story "Life with Freddie".
Wodehouse named McGarry after a real bartender who worked at one of the clubs that inspired the Drones Club, Buck's Club.
Mabel Murgatroyd
Mabel Murgatroyd is a recurring fictional character in the Drones Club stories, appearing in "The Word in Season" and "Bingo Bans the Bomb".
Mavis Peasemarch
Mavis Peasemarch (or Peasmarch) is a recurring fictional character in the Drones Club stories, appearing in "Fate" and "Bramley Is So Bracing".
Charles Pikelet
Charles "Charlie Always Pays" Pikelet is a fictional character in the Drones Club stories. He is Bingo Little's turf accountant. He appears in "Sonny Boy", and is mentioned in "Stylish Stouts".
Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright
Claude Cattermole "Catsmeat" Potter-Pirbright is a recurring fictional character in the Drones Club stories. He also appears in Jeeves stories.
Oofy Prosser
Alexander Charles "Oofy" Prosser is a recurring fictional character in the Drones Club stories. He is a wealthy yet still greedy individual who is often referred to as the club millionaire.
H. C. Purkiss
Henry Cuthbert Purkiss, often called H. C. (or P. P.) Purkiss, is a recurring fictional character in the Drones Club stories. He is the proprietor of Wee Tots, a weekly magazine for children.[3]
Julia Purkiss
Julia Purkiss is a fictional character in the Drones Club stories. She is the wife of Henry Cuthbert Purkiss and a lifelong friend of Rosie M. Banks.[3]
Stiffy Stiffham
Adolphus "Stiffy" Stiffham is a fictional character. He is the main character of the short story "The Luck of the Stiffhams".
Pongo Twistleton
Reginald "Pongo" Twistleton is a fictional character in the Drones Club stories. He also appears in other stories with his Uncle Fred.
Jas Waterbury
Jas (or Jos.) Waterbury is a fictional character who appears in two Drones Club short stories, "The Masked Troubadour" and "Oofy, Freddie and the Beef Trust". He is also featured in the Jeeves short story "Jeeves and the Greasy Bird". A greasy-headed and unscrupulous individual, he is a pianist and theatrical agent. He has a niece named Trixie Waterbury, who plays Fairy Queens in pantomime.[4]
In the Jeeves and Wooster television series adapted from Wodehouse's stories, he is American and lives in New York rather than London. Additionally, Trixie is actually his girlfriend in the television series, though she pretends to be his niece.
Freddie Widgeon
Frederick "Freddie" Fotheringay Widgeon is a recurring fictional character in the Drones Club stories. He is a member of the Drones Club and depends on an allowance from his uncle Lord Blicester. In Ice in the Bedroom, he has a lowly job with Mr Shoesmith, a solicitor with Shoesmith, Shoesmith, Shoesmith and Shoesmith. Freddie has a trusting and unsuspicious nature. His trust in others is a byword, and he believes everything he reads in Time.[5] He is a friend of Bertie Wooster and Bertie's rival in the Drones Club Darts Sweep in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit.[6]
He is known in the club for often falling in love and getting rejected. One Egg says "I wish I had a quid for every girl Freddie Widgeon has loved and lost", and a Bean says "I'll bet that if all the girls Freddie Widgeon has loved and lost were placed end to end they would reach half-way down Piccadilly". He eventually goes coffee-farming in Kenya with Sally Foster.
Freddie appears in the short stories "Fate", "Trouble Down at Tudsleigh", "Goodbye to All Cats", "Noblesse Oblige", "The Masked Troubadour", "Bramley Is So Bracing", "The Fat of the Land", "Oofy, Freddie and the Beef Trust", and "Bingo Bans the Bomb". He is the hero of the novel Ice in the Bedroom. He is mentioned in "Leave it to Algy".
Freddie is mentioned in several Jeeves stories: Right Ho, Jeeves (ch. 22), The Code of the Woosters (ch. 2, 3, and 8), Joy in the Morning (ch. 7), The Mating Season (ch. 10), Ring for Jeeves (ch. 4), Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (ch. 2, 9, and 10), Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (ch. 14), and "Jeeves and the Greasy Bird".
In the television series Jeeves and Wooster, Freddie Widgeon was portrayed by Charles Millham in series one and by John Duval in series two. While the result of the Drones darts tournament is not revealed in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, the contest ends in a tie between Bertie Wooster and Freddie Widgeon in the television series.
References
- Notes
- Ring & Jaggard (1999), pp. 92–93.
- Garrison (1991), p. 116.
- Garrison (1991), p. 158.
- Garrison (1991), p. 206.
- Wodehouse (1993) [1950], chapter 1, p. 11.
- Garrison (1991), pp. 213-214.
- Bibliography
- Garrison, Daniel H. (1991) [1989]. Who's Who in Wodehouse (Revised ed.). Constable & Robinson. ISBN 1-55882-087-6.
- Ring, Tony; Jaggard, Geoffrey (1999). Wodehouse in Woostershire. Porpoise Books. ISBN 1-870-304-19-5.
- Wodehouse, P. G. (1993) [1959]. A Few Quick Ones (Reprinted ed.). London: The Guernsey Press Co. Ltd. ISBN 0099819503.