Bring On The Girls!

by P.G. Wodehouse

The authors depict their humorous experiences while collaborating on musical comedy shows and dealing with actors, actresses, directors, and prod ucers.

Genres: Nonfiction, Humor, Biography, Music, Autobiography, Memoir, Theatre

1 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1953

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

[Sketchbook]

When PG & Bolton met with a Broadway biggie in the teens of the 20thC, a kid in knickerbockers stayed for the story conference. Age 12, he was a nephew, or something, who possessed the intelligence of the typical theatregoer, it was said. If he liked what he heard, so would the public. And if he didnt -- well, forget it. Therein, show business in America. Of course, compiling this fictionalized memoir after W2, Wodehouse said that their account mustn't let anything interfere with entertainment. It doesn't.

What you learn here is that both writers, who wrote the book & lyrics for a slew of shows with each other, and also different partners, were highly civilized, benign humorists with a childlike innocence. Helmed by PG, they present a tolerant confection that refuses to tattle on anyone. Example, composer Jerome Kern, an easily irritable chap, was not always honest about royalty percents. They ignore agent Bessie Marbury's life with interior decorator Elsie De Wolfe, and when chorus girl Marion Davies, 18, shows up for the out-of-town tryout of their 1917 musical, "Oh, Boy!," smothered in mink and then checks into a hotel suite, they think it's swell that her mother wants to keep her warm amid all the comforts of home.

As in PG novels there are plenty of comic misunderstandings and oopsy mistaken identities. While looking for modeling work, the celebrated cover girl Audrey Munson goes to a studio now rented to PG and his wife Ethel who wants a couch recovered. Scribbling lyrics for another show called "Oh, Lady, Lady!" (Oh, those titles!) PG tells Audrey the back and arms are okay -- it's the legs that are a problem. She bridles. "How much will it be altogether?" he asks, thinking of the couch. Oh, so you want the altogether, she responds. Oh yes, he remembers. "---the seat, it should be covered with a piece of chintz, to hide the legs in case they show too much wear and tear."

Removing her coat, Audrey asks, "Do you have a screen?"
"Should we, do you think?" PG completes a lyric.
She goes to the bedroom door. "I'll only be a minute."

Soon Audrey emerges in an advanced state of nudity. PG thinks this is pretty eccentric even for a decorator. He answers the doorbell. The actual decorator stands there, "I've come for--" Seeing what should have been covered with a piece of chintz, she burps, "Perhaps it would be more convenient if I were to come back some other time." PG, the dear toff, assumes it's just a friendly neighbor making a social call. But, hmm, who's who. And isn't wife Ethel due back soon?

Oh, Boy, Oh, Lady, Lady--!

[David]

3.5

'Do you realize,' said Plum, 'that we've been working together for thirteen years and not a dirty look from start to finish? Most collaborators hate each other's guts after the first couple of shows. It's extraordinary.'

The Wodehouse book I read just prior to this one - 'Jill the Reckless' - is one that I referred to as being for Wodehouse completists only. 'Bring on the Girls' moves that distinction a step further: it's not so much for average completists as much as fanatical ones. 

It bucks the Wodehouse norm in a few ways. 

First, it's not a novel but more of a memoir; written with Guy Bolton, Wodehouse's main collaborator in the world of musical comedy. (See quote above.) Before Wodehouse's career as a novelist took off, he and Bolton had a very productive creative partnership, supplying book and lyrics for shows set to music (mainly) by Jerome Kern.

Altogether Plum [aka Wodehouse] and Guy had, singly or together, nineteen opening nights in the three years 1926-7-8.

It was this significant team that largely revolutionized the musical comedy theater scene of its day. Once they began to be known, Wodehouse and Bolton seemed to work non-stop. Not every show was a hit (though enough of them were), the work was exhausting but, at the very least, it helped them make it through the Depression. 

'BOTG' has an interesting / engaging structure. Sometimes it actually does read like a novel. Other times, it reads like a shared recording of experiences tempered by Wodehouse's dominant tone. As well, it is the tale of a delightful, decades-long friendship.

Published in 1953, the book is a collection of reminiscences from roughly 30 years before. At times it's astonishing that the memories seem so vivid to the duo - but diaries are hinted at so perhaps a good number of diary entries were plentifully detailed. 

As a document of stage history, it's clearly a flux period, often a seemingly haphazard one. That's probably to be expected in a time of major evolution in a cultural form. The idea of 'story' was expanding; Broadway began to lose its more frivolous vaudeville feel.  

Still - judging from the snippets of lyrics we get throughout the book - it would be awhile before the art form matured and what was actually sung would lose its overly quaint sentiment. 

Overall (and though I enjoyed it well enough), 'BOTG' works best as a snapshot of theater history and, as such, will appeal more to theater buffs who lean toward (or are tickled by) nostalgia.  

[Douglas Wilson]

This is not a Wodehouse novel, but is kind of a quasi-memoir, written together with Guy Bolton, about their time in the early twentieth century writing musical comedies together. It is pretty funny, and is replete with gossip from that era, including a number of names that are still known today -- W.C. Fields, Ziegfeld, Gershwin, Cole Porter, Bob Hope, Fred Astaire, and even one anecdote of the time Wodehouse met Gilbert (of Gilbert & Sullivan fame), and managed to get him to glare at him.

This book is the source of Wodehouse's practice (at least for a time) of writing a letter, sealing it in an envelope, addressing it, stamping it, and throwing it out the window of his New York apartment. Kind-hearted strangers would pick it up off the sidewalk, presume it to be lost, and post it for him.

[Usfromdk]

"Critics have often commented on the sombre gloom which permeates all Wodehouse novels like the smell of muddy shoes in a locker-room and have wished that, fine as they are, there was not quite so much of the Russian spirit of pessimism and hopelessness in them" (This book is hilarious!)

Because of this book I have now finally learned how to correctly pronounce Wodehouse' last name, and it turns out I've been doing it all wrong... (see page 14)

This is a somewhat unique book quite different from Wodehouse' novels. The book is one long collection of amusing anecdotes and observations made by Wodehouse and Guy Bolton, giving a sketch of their years working together on stage works and musical comedy. The book is very funny and I laughed out loud multiple times along the way. Two things however subtract a bit, the first being that it's really difficult to keep track of all the people they mention and talk about in the book, and the second being that 'the narrative', to the extent that there even can be said to be an overarching narrative linking these episodes and anecdotes together, feels somewhat fragmented.

At the end I was wondering whether I should give this book four stars or five, and it was a close call - I first gave it four stars, but then I changed my mind and ended up giving it a five star rating. It's a really wonderful book in spite of the above criticisms and people who like Wodehouse' books should definitely consider this one a must-read; you should certainly not keep away from it simply on account of the fact that Guy Bolton is the co-author. However having said this, I am almost positive that having read many of Wodehouse' books before you read this one will really add to the reading experience, and this book should definitely not be the first Wodehouse book you read.

[R.]

A bygone era written of in a bygone era. A great buddy flick. Makes you wonder how they pulled it off, where they got the energy. Even the Robert Benchley cameo elicits chuckles. Offers up the originals of Jeeves and Blandings Castle. The Crash of 1929 hangs over every sunlit moment, just offstage in ragged tophat and soiled tails ready to twirl its cape and bare its razor teeth like a Lon Chaney fiend, but our heroes (in a cynical twist by the otherwise reliable author, improbably named Guy and Plum) survive into the modern age of Talkies, the final pages a fitting punchline.

[Illiterate]

Plum struggles to enliven the history of musical comedy.

[Suzannah]

Hilarious (although some of the material turns up in other books, like LOUDER AND FUNNIER).

I knew Wodehouse worked in musical comedy and film for a while but I had no idea just how much or for how long, nor what a packet he made it of it. Plum's musical comedy career started before World War I and this book follows his track through the war and the 1920s to the Great Depression, when he lost most of his money and moved to Hollywood to write for film, which had newly discovered sound. It was fascinating to realise before then just how big the theatre business was.

Fascinating look at the lives of Ziegfeld (and his Follies), George Gershwin, Fred Astaire and his sister (!) Adele, and many more. One is never quite sure which of the anecdotes are true and which are just tall tales, but all of them are HILARIOUS.

[Davidg]

Wodehouse’s life as a lyric writer on Broadway and the West End, written in the usual Wodehouse style. There is the wordplay, the use of quotes and that light humorous touch even when, and perhaps especially when, talking about failures. We forget how important this work was to Wodehouse’s career, thinking of him only as a writer of books. With Guy Bolton and often with Jerome Kern as composer, he was involved in many hits in the decade following WWI. This book takes us through that decade, with stories involving the greatest stars of the era, up to the Wall Street Crash when the whole of that world ceased. The book ends with the two arriving in Hollywood for the next part of their career.

[Simon]

A treat. A wonderful treat. As a rule I don’t much care for biographies or autobiographies (and this is both having been written by two people about themself and the other) and it took me a short while to realise that that was what it was. (sentence written in order to include a “that that” which is a favourite usage of Wodehouse’s). A hilarious (so funny you stop to re-read passages several times to get the perfect inflexion without bursting into uncontrollable laughter) journey through 1920s Broadway and the West End and ending up in Hollywood. Many of the shows known to me, many unknown. Lots of famous (but to me unknown) impresarios, directors, actors, dancers, singers comics, writers composers and lyricists. Lots of the same but known to me: Marion Davies, Fred Astaire, Adele Astaire, Noel Coward, Florence Ziegfeld, Charlie Chaplin and many more. Light, engaging and (as I said) very, very funny.

On top of that an inspiring book about writing and being a writer. And a masterclass in comic writing. No wonder just about every significant comic writer on this side of the pond (I’m not as expert on American humourists (but as Americans can’t spell humourist one may harbour doubts) has taken on, borrowed, stolen, bowdlerised and plagiarised his work. Actually I do know his influence on American writers (and good ones at that) as Bill Bryson is a obvious disciple as are the writers of Ten Things I Hate About You and many more.

I loved this book. The first question you have to ask yourself on awarding 5 stars is; will I read it again? To which I answer, "Absolutely dear boy."

[Chet Makoski]

This book is full of so many funny and revealing stories about writing the book, music and lyrics for Broadway musicals by Bolton, Kern and Wodehouse. We learn interesting bits about their lives, such as Wodehouse, living at the time on a fourth floor walkup in London, telling Bolton:

"I throw all my letters out of windows. If you'll excuse me for a moment, I'd like to get this one off. It's rather important. I've only got to stick it in its envelope."
He did so, stamped it and tossed it through the window.
"You see," he explained, as he did so. "Someone always picks it up and posts it. It saves me sweating up and down four flights of stairs every time I want to mail a letter."

[Renee]

Wodehouse and Bolton were good friends who often collaborated (not that their friendship prevented them from collaborating with others as well). This memoir is one that doesn't let the facts get in the way of a good story. And there's lots of good stories here, including many recycled from their other writings. One of Wodehouse's strengths was the ability to rearrange and reuse plots and humor while keeping it fresh. The book is also a good window into the theatre world of the 1920s when the two helped reinvent musical theater.

[Arthur Pierce]

Once I got used to the idea that this book consists of mostly made-up, or at least severely embellished, stories, I rather enjoyed it. It was certainly interesting to note that just about everyone encountered in the world of Bolton and Wodehouse talks like characters in a P.G. Wodehouse story, and that's a large part of the book's charm. I happen to be interested in show business during the period under consideration, and I did find this book to be enlightening, even if the authors played fast and loose with the facts.

[Christine]

A wonderful read-aloud! Just as funny as his novels!

[Colette]

Hilarious. Well worth a re ad.

[Himanshu Shah]

Autobiographical stuff from Plum Wodehouse. Innocent soul in a bad world.

[Tamsin]

Such an insight into the world of Plum and Bolton.

[Glen Engel-Cox]

P.G. Wodehouse was often quoted as saying that his novels and stories were musical comedy without the music. Just how much this is true becomes apparent from reading his autobiographical book Bring on the Girls (co-written with his musical theater partner, Guy Bolton). Although Wodehouse is now known for the 80-plus novels he wrote over his life starring such wonderful characters as Bertie Wooster and his manservant Jeeves, in the 1920s, Wodehouse was better known as a lyricist for a string of hit Broadway plays to which Bolton wrote the book (the play itself or the story) and Jerome Kern wrote the music. One New York critic thought so much of this trio that he wrote his own lyrics in praise:

This is the trio of musical fame,

Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern:

Better than anyone else you can name,

Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern.

Nobody knows what on earth they’be been bitten by:

All I can say is I mean to get lit an’ buy

Orchestra seats for the next one that’s written by

Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern.

It’s slightly difficult for us today to understand the Broadway of the 20s, because shows today take millions of dollars to stage and are usually remakes of movies. In the heyday of this trio, though, it only took $50k to stage one of their productions, and often this musical would move on to Hollywood or into one of Wodehouse’s novels after its run was done.

The book itself reads like one of Wodehouse’s best, as it focuses often on humorous anecdotes of the flamboyant characters of the time like Flo Ziegfield (he of Follies fame) and Col. Savage (who used to trick authors to work on his boat under the pretense of listening to their ideas for new plays). You can also get a glimpse into the stock market bubble of the time as Wodehouse and Bolton get all set to produce their own plays right before the crash. Of course, this is a Wodehouse book, so the text doesn’t linger on the tragedy but instead focuses on how Wodehouse and Bolton both move on to Hollywood from there, making a silk purse out of a pork belly.

[Andrew Fish]

Alongside his career as a prolific novelist, Wodehouse was also highly productive in theatrical circles, providing lyrics for some thirty plays and collaborating on the book a further fifteen. Many of those plays were created in collaboration with Guy Bolton and this book tells the story of that relationship through a patchwork of light-hearted anecdotes and star-studded stories.

What's striking about the book is how crazy the times were. Characters leap from the pages in a way which, had you not been told otherwise, you would have considered pure Plum invention. From the play almost ruined by a dog loose on the stage to the theatrical producer who takes advantage of young hopefuls by tricking them into manning his yacht, any of these incidents could have been from a Wodehouse novel - in fact, in the case of the theatrical producer who signs plays based on the opinion of his teenage son (having the same intelligence as a typical Broadway audience), this is literally the case. An accusation often levelled at Wodehouse is that his work ignores the issues of his times, choosing instead to live in a kind of fantasy world. Quite apart from the fact that this is untrue (you just have to look at his attack on eugenics in The Little Nugget or his send-up of fascists in the character of Spode) this book proves that he was reflecting his times. After a bleak and terrible conflict, people wanted escape and the golden age of theatre (and subsequently of Hollywood) provided that escape, both for the people it catapulted from poverty and obscurity into stardom and for the people who enjoyed their work.

If there is a weakness in this book it is that, written more as a stream of anecdote than a story, it lacks the structure that does so much to elevate Wodehouse's usual books. It remains, however, an enjoyable read and a wonderful glimpse into a more carefree age.

[F.R.]

One of the reasons the keepers of the canon are suspicious of Pelham Grenville Wodehouse is his productivity. Your true artist is supposed to suffer over his/her prose and not be massively prolific. This is a book which celebrates Wodehouse’s ability to churn ‘em out, showing how – even when creating Jeeves and Blandings – he was writing dozens of Broadway musicals.

Written in conjunction with Guy Bolton (one of history’s forgotten men if there was one) this is a whisk through a long ago theatreland. There are cameos from the likes of George Gershwin, W.C. Fields and even Vita Sackville-West so there’s a lot of name dropping at the then high end of entertainment. (It’s actually interesting to read this after the Mae West book, as this the more successful theatrical world she aspired to). However the vibrancy of this lost Broadway is difficult to capture.

Really this is a book of theatre anecdotes strung loosely together, and if it wasn’t for Wodehouse’s prose style (and I’m guessing it is Wodehouses’s rather than Bolton’s) it could all be quite tiresome. As it is, it’s that rarest of creatures – a book which doesn’t add up to much, but has lots of laugh out loud moments.

[John Frankham]

Bring on the Girls! is a semi-autobiographical collaboration between P. G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton, published in 1953.

Subtitled "The Improbable Story of Our Life in Musical Comedy, With Pictures To Prove It", it takes the form of a series of partly fictionalised, partly apocryphal stories centred on the world of Broadway, where both Wodehouse and Bolton had worked successfully as lyricists, collaborating with the likes of composer Jerome Kern, the Gershwins, etc. It features anecdotes about the larger-than-life characters who dominated Broadway between 1915 and 1930.

I thoroughly enjoyed the picture related of the period in England and the USA when musicals were turned from song and dance vehicles to the coherent plot development which came to fruition after the war. Many great writers of these later musicals have played tributes to the part played by the supreme wordsmith, Wodehouse.

[Frederick]

This should be interesting in itself, inasmuch as Wodehouse was more involved in musical comedy than you might think. (He wrote the lyrics to "Bill," a song which wound up, through no fault of his own, in SHOWBOAT.) "Bill" was written for an earlier Jerome Kern musical and cut. But, yes, Wodehouse worked with Jerome Kern. Guy Bolton was quite prolific in musical theatre. He and Wodehouse became lifelong friends.

[Ian]

An autobiographical joint effort by Guy Bolton and PG Wodehouse, who collaborated as book (Bolton) and lyrics (Wodehouse) in many musical comedies on Broadway throughout the 1920's. Book ends at the point where the Wall Street crash wipes them both out, and Broadway as well, driving them to Hollywood to work as screen writers.

Well worth the read - the title stems from the catchcry of directors, producers etc. of the era whenever a show hit a flat spot in rehearsals - bring on the girls!

[Karen]

This is a now out-of-print memoir by the humorist P.G. Wodehouse and his partner, Guy Bolton. The two collaborated on a series of musicals, many of which were extremely successful in their day. The book is a fascinating look at the Broadway theater world of the 20s and 30s, told with the wit and humor you'd expect from these two.

[Caroline]

So obviously I read this in my quest to complete all of Wodehouse, but people interested in the New York that is a might find it interesting. This is the recollection of his adventures with his longtime writing partner, Guy Bolton. It contains interesting peeks at life in the theater, then takes you through the crash and his move to Hollywood.

[Lynette]

This is one of those memoirs of which one feels sure the authors do not let the truth get in the way of a good story. It's an entertaining look at life in the teens through the twenties of the last century, especially as it pertained to the production of musical comedies in New York and London. Lots of laughs.

[Kathryn]

Mostly entertaining as a glimpse into early musical theater and "the other side" of PG's writing career (he did say his novels were like a sort of musical comedy without music!) Also because of Wodehouse and Bolton's fruitful collaboration on one of my favorite musicals, "Anything Goes."

[Rachel]

Had its enjoyable parts, but could have used condensing.

[Paula]

Very funny. Very charming. Very dated. Interesting foreshadowing of Great Depression.

[Fazackerly Toast]

I.LOVE.P.G.WODEHOUSE.

[Patricia Taylor]

Note: My edition of this book is a hardcover Simon & Schuster, 1953, First Printing. 280 pages.