Laughing Gas, P. G. Wodehouse
Laughing Gas, P. G. Wodehouse
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Laughing Gas

Author: P. G. Wodehouse

Narrator: Jonathan Cecil

Unabridged: 6 hr 46 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/01/2012

Categories: Fiction, Humorous, Classic, Satire

Synopsis

Joey Cooley is a golden-curled child film star, the idol of American motherhood. Reginald, third Earl of Havershot, is a boxing blue on a mission to save his wayward cousin from the fleshpots of Hollywood. Both are under anesthesia at the dentist's office when something strange happens and their identities are swapped. Suddenly, Joey can use his six-foot frame to get his own back on his Hollywood persecutors. But Reggie has to endure everything Joey had to put up with in the horrible life of a child star—including kidnap. Laughing Gas is a Wodehouse's brilliantly funny take on the "if I were you" theme—a wry look at the dangers of getting what you wish for in the movie business and beyond.

About P. G. Wodehouse

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881–1975) was an English humorist who wrote novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He was highly popular throughout a career that lasted more than seventy years, and his many writings continue to be widely read. He is best known for his novels and short stories of Bertie Wooster and his manservant Jeeves and for his settings of English upper-class society of the pre– and post–World War I era. He lived in several countries before settling in the United States after World War II. During the 1920s, he collaborated with Broadway legends like Cole Porter and George Gershwin on musicals and, in the 1930s, expanded his repertoire by writing for motion pictures. He was honored with a knighthood in 1975.

About Jonathan Cecil

Jonathan Cecil (1939–2011) was a vastly experienced actor, appearing at Shakespeare’s Globe as well as in such West End productions as The Importance of Being Earnest, The Seagull, and The Bed before Yesterday. He toured in The Incomparable Max, Twelfth Night, and An Ideal Husband, while among his considerable television and film appearances were The Rector’s Wife, Just William, Murder Most Horrid, and As You Like It.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Pam on March 11, 2024

This may not be the first subject for Wodehouse that would come to your mind. That would more likely be Bertie Wooster and Jeeves. However, P. G. Wodehouse did spend quite a bit of his time in the United States trying to make Hollywood work for him. I’d say this book shows some of his frustrations w......more

Goodreads review by L.S. on May 21, 2021

Wodehouse is grandmaster of comedic writing. Possibly the funniest writer of all time when adjusted for humor inflation.  It's all very prim and proper, with some hedging, and hemming and hawing, and quibbling and quarrelling and snorting and guffawing, but when it comes right down to it, it's downri......more

Goodreads review by Anne on November 18, 2024

Who knew a toothache could cause so many problems? When the Earl of Havershot goes to America to break up the potentially unsuitable engagement of his cousin Eggy, he doesn't expect to end up swapping bodies with child actor, Joey Cooley. What, what? But let's back up. First, he'll fall in love with......more

Goodreads review by John on January 07, 2020

Another funny story. When Lord Havershot a shallow aristocrat is sent to Hollywood to bring back Eggie his cousin. Hilarity ensues. A trip to the dentist at the same time as Joey Cooley the male equivalent of Shirley Temple results in the two swapping their souls while under the laughing gas. The re......more

Goodreads review by David on January 08, 2024

Having feasted liberally on Wodehouse's Jeeves / Wooster & Blandings Castle books, I found myself moving into the other avenues of the author's fertile comic mind. Hence, the zany one-off of 'Laughing Gas'.  Equally lightweight and preposterous, 'LG' deals in an identity switch, brought on improbably......more

Quotes

“A brilliantly funny writer—perhaps the most consistently funny the English language has yet produced.” Times (London)

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