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The Herald Scotland
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Step into the witty world of PG Wodehouse
'Yes, he's got a great story,' says Daws, one of the most familiar faces on television, who has appeared in the likes of Jeeves and Wooster, John Sullivan's Roger Roger. Essex-born Daws became interested in PG 'Plum' Wodehouse (as a child, Wodehouse couldn't pronounce his first name, Pelham, and early attempts sounded like 'Plum,') when at RADA. 'I was given a copy of Right Ho, Jeeves by actor/writer Tom Wilkinson, who was directing at the Academy. I read it and loved it, little knowing that a few years later I'd be starring in a wonderful TV adaptation.' Daws became fascinated with Wodehouse, reading several biographies of the writer. 'I learned about his extraordinary life, including his early career as a Broadway lyricist, which I'd known nothing about. I then called my friend Bill Humble and said, 'Do you think there might be a play about this?'. Incredibly, he told me that he'd just finished working on a screenplay about his life, which wasn't being picked up.' He smiles. 'The screenplay didn't make it, but the play has.' The actor adds; 'I was invited up to do the piece at the Assembly two years ago but couldn't because I was filming. Then Bill died just before Christmas. But I called our producer and suggested we do it this year.' The Wodehouse theatre project is clearly a labour of love. 'I was fascinated to learn that Wodehouse was a man who lived in a little bubble. So few people actually knew what he looked or sounded like. And I had no idea that before he'd become a successful writer, he'd been a contributor of stories to magazines, but then made his fortune in America as a lyricist for the likes of Cole Porter. At one point he had five shows running on Broadway simultaneously, and even if he'd never writer a Jeeves and Wooster, he'd have become famous for helping to create the great American musical, using the American vernacular, which hadn't been done before.' What sort of man was Wodehouse? 'He was guarded and considered quite shy and naïve. He was in some ways a repressed Victorian, separated from his parents for most of his childhood. (His father was a Colonial Civil Servant. Plum was dumped on a nanny from the ages of two to 15 while they worked in Hong Kong). He really did exist in the world he conjured up and was never really happy in the world outside of it. The one time in his world he was forced out of it, it didn't go well at all.' Daws is referring to Wodehouse's connection with Nazi Germany. Living in France when war broke out, he was playing in a cricket match on the June day in 1941 when taken prisoner and sent to an internment camp in Upper Silesia. The Germans manipulated him into making what became known as the 'Berlin broadcast', which was used by the Nazis for propaganda purposes. He wrote a diary of this period entitled Wodehouse in Wonderland. Wodehouse described the period as his 'great shaming.' MI6 later exonerated the writer. 'To be honest, some people are still divided (about Wodehouse's complicity) but I think there is no shadow of a doubt that he was innocent. But stupid? Yes. Interestingly (and sadly) the British government didn't release the report of his innocence until after his death.' Wodehouse was a workaholic, describing himself as 'a writing machine'. 'This was when he was happiest,' says Daws. Was Wodehouse living the life in his head of the sort he couldn't manage for real? 'I didn't think of that, but I think it's spot on. It's often true of writers generally, such as Dickens, but I think it's especially true of Wodehouse.' Daws adds; 'And Plum didn't write about a world which existed. It was historic, but it had a lightness to it, about toffs and rich people and the so-called Roaring Twenties. Yet he's still respected as one the greatest comic writers ever. And he was entirely dedicated to his craft.' The actor laughs. 'He knew that comedy is a very serious business.' The play is set in the 1950s where we see Wodehouse is in his New York state home, writing another Jeeves and Wooster book. We hear Wodehouse's wife Ethel ('Bunny') occasionally ask for a drink as an off-stage voice, while he writes letters to his beloved daughter 'Snorkles' (his affectionate name for Leonora). He is also pursued by a biographer, whom we don't see, keen to write his story. And Wodehouse occasionally breaks into the songs he has co-written. Read more Daws loves the challenge, but he's eminently qualified to entertain an audience, leaping across characters including Bertie Wooster, Jeeves, Lord Emsworth, Gussie Fink-Nottle and the squashily romantic Madeline Bassett. He has long been a natural performer. Born with feet and leg problems, the actor spent the first five years of his life in and out of hospital. 'I didn't walk until I was five, but I was precocious little brat and cast into the women's ward I sang songs like How Much Is That Doggie in The Window.' He grins. 'I blame my early age handicap for introducing me to the joys of comedy. And then at my ordinary secondary school, I was lucky to have a great drama department. But there were showbiz genes in the family tree, such as grandmother who appeared in Marie Lloyd musicals in the West End and played the Fairy Godmother at Drury Lane.' Robert Daws' talent shone through, accepted into RADA aged just 17, he went on to join the Royal Lyceum Company in Edinburgh and work in acclaimed TV productions such as the award-winning Outside Edge by Richard Harris. He smiles as he rewinds, 'I think I'm so lucky to have worked in rep theatre. You really get the chance to find out what you are good at and hearing the gears crunch when it doesn't work.' Daws grins. 'In this play I do almost everything, play so many characters. It's almost like going back to the days when I played the back end of a pantomime camel in Dick Whittington.' But the reason he can shine in this production is because he was that half of a camel. 'Yes, you do learn as you go along.' He laughs out loud. 'I do owe an awful lot to Esmarelda. For one thing, she got me my Equity Card.' Wodehouse in Wonderland, Assembly George Square Studios, until August 24, (excluding 18), at 6:10pm
Cosmopolitan
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Cosmopolitan
I Had a One-Night Stand With a Wealthy Stranger in the Hamptons
It was a flawless summer day and I was going to the beach. Did I have any plans to go to the beach? Absolutely none. But, being a modern woman of the world—or at least a woman with access to dating apps—I didn't see any reason I couldn't Tinder some up. I threw on a bikini and got to swiping for the lucky random who would have the honor of escorting me to the coast that day. Truth be told, I'd been in a bit of a dating dry spell—and thus, by extension, a sexing one—for the past several months. And once it's been a minute, I tend to get a lot pickier. The longer it's been, the higher my standards. Still, I somehow had faith that the dating app gods would bring me the perfect beach date that day. Miraculously, they delivered—a fit, tan, early-50s daddy type who, as a 20-something with a thing for older guys, just so happened to be my type. Within just a few messages, he invited me out to his house in the Hamptons. This beach day had just gotten a lot more glamorous. I quickly dolled up a bit more than I'd planned to (handsome, rich Hamptons man was no longer just some Tinder rando I was using for a beach day—this man had long-term potential and I was ready to bring my A-game), then hopped in the car he'd called to whisk me away from my apartment in Queens and off to his Southampton mansion, congratulating myself on pulling the last-minute beach plans of my dreams out of thin air. Now, can I, in good conscience, recommend going to a strange man's house hours away from where you live on a first date? Probably not. But listen, when a hot, wealthy Hamptons homeowner invites you to come dick around his place in Southampton all day, you don't say no—especially if you haven't had sex in five months. As we neared his high net-worth address, he texted me words I could only dream of one day dropping so casually: 'Just tell the driver the gates will open automatically.' Excuse me? Who was I and how had I suddenly swapped lives with the kind of person entrusted to say things like, The gates of this Hamptons mansion will open automatically, Jeeves? Inside, the man of the house—who, by some act of God, actually looked like his profile photos—gave me a warm greeting, a chilled glass of rosé, and a jaw-dropping tour of the place. It was exactly the kind of sprawling, sun-drenched, floor-to-ceiling-windowed affair you'd imagine, except all the more stunning because I wasn't imagining it. For one day, if for one day only, this was my real life. I felt at once wildly out of place and right at home—that confusing feeling of misplaced familiarity you get when you wake up from dreaming about a place you've never actually been to but are certain you've dreamed of before. I had a sudden, childlike urge to run through the halls and try to get lost—to play hide-and-seek with myself in this strange wonderland I'd stumbled into. He kept the tour of his bedroom brief and rather pointedly unassuming. For a man who invited random women to his house on a first date, he was surprisingly gentlemanly in that regard. And maybe I was just delirious from the rosé or the all-around opulence, but I was beginning to feel a kind of misplaced familiarity for this man, too. I felt drawn to him in a sort of past-life way, as warm as it was thrilling. An hour and a few glasses of Whispering Angel later, when he finally placed his hands gently around the back of my head and kissed me, it was one of those, What if this is really something? kinds of kisses. I spent the rest of the day in a glorious rosé haze, splashing around half-naked in his shimmering swimming pool. I'd ditched my red bikini top in a sudden stroke of uninhibited bliss, shamelessly showing off for him as he watched from the steps of the pool. Something about him and this alternate universe we were sharing seemed to bring out an almost childlike recklessness in me—carefree and self-indulgent. 'Can I suck your dick?' I asked in another stroke of reckless abandon, swimming up to where he sat on the steps. 'Like, right here?' 'Yeah,' I said. 'I wanna see if I can do it underwater.' Reader, orally gifted though I may be, it turns out I cannot suck dick underwater and neither can you. Don't try this one at home. I grabbed his hand and he joined me in the pool, laughing off our little subaquatic experiment as I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist, feeling his already half-stiff cock harden against me. You may not be able to suck a guy off under water, but you can certainly turn him on down there. 'Freckles,' he said suddenly, placing a hand on my cheek. 'Oh yeah,' I said, feeling my gaze falter under the realization that the extra layer of glam I'd applied specifically for him had washed off in the pool. 'Never wear makeup again,' he whispered, leaning in and kissing me deeply but softly. I grabbed his head and kissed him harder. 'I want you,' I said. We got out of the pool and he wrapped me in a fluffy white towel, taking me inside and leading me by the hand back up to his bedroom. This time, I knew I'd be getting the full tour. He laid me down on the massive bed and pulled off my wet bikini bottoms, kissing up my thighs before settling his face between my legs. I don't usually like it when guys immediately try to go down on me. It tends to feel a little, 'Let's get your orgasm out of the way so we can move on to more important things, like my orgasm.' But not this time. I got the sense this man genuinely wanted nothing more than me in his mouth. His tongue on my clit and his finger expertly working a come-hither motion on just the right spot inside me, I could feel myself approaching what may have been the fastest partnered orgasm of my life…until his sex playlist got cut off by an ad, that is. Apparently a man can have a pool bigger than your entire apartment and still not spring for Spotify Premium. Laughing, I motioned for him to tap out. I've done some ungodly things in bed in my day, but one thing I won't do is get eaten out to a Taco Bell commercial. He laughed, kissing me and letting me taste myself on his tongue. 'I want you inside me,' I murmured into his ear. And I did. Yes, the oral was top-notch, but I was long-overdue for a classic dicking down. And so dick me down he did—in the surprisingly tender, intimate way he did everything. Still turned on from my almost-orgasm moments before, I came quickly, easily, effortlessly, with his warm body on top of me and his hard cock throbbing away inside of me. Like everything else that day, it felt magic, delusional, too good to be true—like I had somehow stolen someone else's life and gotten away with it. I couldn't get away with it forever, of course. A few hours later, our flawless summer day had faded into a slightly chilly summer night. And, just like Cinderella, it was time for me to leave the palace and return to the humble life waiting for me back in Queens. He put me in a car, kissed me goodbye, and muttered some vague pleasantries about getting together again soon, never to be seen or texted by again. I'd have thought I dreamed the whole thing if it weren't for a few photos I'd made him take of me topless and careless in his pool—photos I've held onto as proof that for one gorgeous, rosé-soaked day, I got to live (and fuck) like the rich.
The Independent
24-06-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Why it's time you got off Google and used a different search engine instead
It may seem like a faint memory now, but there was a time in the not-so-distant past when Google wasn't as synonymous with search as it is today. Even after its launch in 1998, kids of the dial-up generation fired up – not Google – posing queries to Jeeves, a digital butler named after PG Wodehouse's fictional character. But soon enough, the newer, cooler search engine, which now comes under the umbrella company Alphabet, began to dominate the market – the word 'Google' even became a verb, demonstrating its popularity. And not without good reason. Beyond serving users the most accurate results of any of its counterparts, it also had a user-friendly interface and crushed its rivals by being the best product available. Sure, habit and marketing spoke for a big portion of its user base, but people weren't forced to use it – even if they were using Google-driven kit, such as the Android operating system or a Chrome browser. Fast-forward to 2025, though, and Google not only makes up around 90 per cent of searches in the UK, the landscape is more than a little different to what it was – so much so that watchdogs around the world are questioning how the American firm has managed to monoploise the market, and whether it is right for one company to wield such power. The UK's Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) is not only proposing that more be done when it comes to diversifying search results and surfacing businesses and publishers more (over the years Google has implemented various search engine results page (SERP) features which deincenitivise click-through and encourage more time spent on, well, Google – it's latest being AI-generated content), they are also suggesting the tech giant gives users a 'choice screen'. What does that mean, exactly? And will it be as irritating as that cookies notice that crops up every damn time you go online? Perhaps. When I probed the CMA, I was pointed to yet more dense regulator-speak in its documents. But essentially, it could mean a pop-up at point of access, asking whether you actually want to use Google or an alternative, such as Bing or DuckDuckGo. It's been years since I've used anything other than Google, but for the purpose of this piece, I road-tested some of those alternatives, typing in: ' Personal Independence Payment '. Although all three platforms served the website first, interestingly Google's competitors also placed Citizens Advice much higher and de-prioritised news stories about coming changes to PIP. And as someone who is disabled and highly invested in this topic, I found the latter to be more relevant to my search intentions. The results screens on these alternatives were also a good deal cleaner, and DuckDuckGo, in particular, highlights its promise to protect users' privacy and not track them across the web. If data protection is your thing (I know I'm keen on it), it is a product worth trying. True, Google is still the kingpin and can pose real problems for businesses that are heavily reliant on it – a tweak of the algorithm can wreck a business's revenues. The CMA might also be right to worry about Google's ads revenue and how this, too, creates less room for healthy competition. Looking at ways to give firms more power and reducing bias in search results are admiral goals that most people can get behind. But does that mean people will make the switch to other platforms? As Google's global search market share dipped below 90 per cent in the final three months of 2024, there is already some promise that its reign of supremacy is diminishing – arguably users are getting fed up of ads, often incorrect AI results, and the website they're actually looking for being buried on the page. It, therefore, could be possible that this problem ultimately fixes itself. I'm not sure… but I know I for one will start diversifying which search engines I use – and how I use them.
Spectator
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
2707: Get-together
Twelve unclued entries can form six new words (not in the grid) Across 4 Each Chrome browser's opening changes online site for self-validation? (4,7) 12 No charge for these new dancing routines (9) 13 Goblin at last living in tree trunk (5) 14 Cover turned over, novel is Catch-22? (7) 15 Observe small branch (4) 16 A third of Americans put on weight – belly for some (4) 17 Internally, customer's right (4) 20 Taking time, sumptuous western showed triumphant joy (7) 21 Carpet fabric, mainly rush, packed into cube (7) 25 Last line of defence – boiler fixed (6) 30 Live start of match involving very good sweeper? (5) 32 Southern docks bringing in old military spies (6) 35 Mixture of perfume ingredients combined to net love (6) 38 Boss, lazy, missing first post (7) 40 Maybe still wearing stockings in care home (7) 43 Church blocks huge declarations in Scotland (4) 44 See you time and time again, always at the front (2-2) 45 Without antennae, nothing stops flying saucer (7) 47 School accepting odd boorish Aussie rugby player (5-4) 48 Tough trooper positioned around island infested with bugs (11) Down 1 Dippy sort of office aid? (7) 3 Chief good on breaking total silence linked to wrong (6,5) 5 One weeping about that gutted US animal (7) 6 Having elevated land, hardened by cold when removing top (6) 8 Area, but off beaten track (7) 10 Do away with chatty flier superior group absorbs (9) 11 Rarely go back to wish otherwise, finally yielding to case for defence (7) 18 State bore put up in No. 10 (5) 19 Injurious nasty DJ peculiar about single (11) 22 Tobacco plant aril oddly contains mostly fluid (9) 27 D-Day target of May has finally gone (5) 29 Young lady indulged over blunder (7) 31 Objective means upright (7) 34 Judge provided very loud reprimands (4,3) 36 Exclusive bunch accepts Lothario but not her (6) 37 Happy over solver being welcomed by Jeeves after vacation (6) Download a printable version here. A first prize of a £30 John Lewis voucher and two runners-up prizes of £20 vouchers for the first correct solutions opened on Monday 30 June. Please scan or photograph entries and email them (including the crossword number in the subject field) to crosswords@ or post to: Crossword 2707, The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP. Please allow six weeks for prize delivery.
Spectator
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Spare us from ‘experimental' novels
Some sorts of books and dramas have very strict rules. We like a lot of things to be absolutely predictable. In romantic comedies, a girl chooses between a charmer who turns out to be a rotter and another man she hates at first but then falls for. In the BBC's long-running Casualty, if a worried patient turns up with his put-upon wife who coughs twice, it's the wife who's got an undiagnosed fatal disease. Bertie Wooster falls for a girl that Jeeves doesn't care for and the valet goes to some lengths to detach his employer. We like these things because they're safe and a little bit cosy and we all know what the rules are. One of the most rigid genres at the moment is slightly different. Even though it's got a set of incredibly strict rules, it's regarded by its adherents, not as an exercise within conventional boundaries, like an episode of Midsomer Murders, but as a radical demonstration of rule-breaking. I'm talking about the experimental novel. After a while, the sceptical reader has to ask: if the same rule is being broken in exactly the same way, novel after novel, at what point does that turn into a new and very strict rule? Earlier this year, the Irish-British novelist Eimear McBride published a new novel, The City Changes Its Face. I single her out but, to be honest, there is no shortage of other exemplars. It was greeted with rapture by book reviewers. The Guardian observed with awe that 'she uses verbs as nouns, nouns as adjectives'. This magazine's reviewer wrote: 'To say that it is 'experimental' doesn't do justice to its flexibility and force.
