The Luck of the Bodkins Audiobook on Audio CD, buy now from AudioGO

Things on board the RMS Atlantic are terribly, terribly complicated...

Monty Bodkin loves Gertrude, who thinks he likes Lotus Blossom, a starlet who definitely adores Ambrose, who thinks that she has a thing for his brother, Reggie, who is struck by Mabel Spence, sister-in-law of Ikey Llewellyn (movie mogul, Ambrose’s prospective employer and reluctant smuggler), but hasn’t the means to marry her.

With well-meaning but unhelpful ship’s steward Albert Peasemarch and a toy mouse with a screw-top head thrown in for good measure, it will, indeed, take the luck of the Bodkins to sort it all out.

P.G. Wodehouse was born in 1881 and died on St Valentine’s Day in 1975, only weeks after being knighted. He is most famous for the creation of Jeeves and Wooster, and many of his novels have been recorded as audiobooks.

Wodehouse has chosen the cabins and the decks of the RMS Atlantic on which to stage this story of star-crossed lovers and well-crossed wires. Pop on this CD audiobook and you’ll be drawn into a delightfully daft web of intrigue, in which we discover that Monty Bodkin is in love with Gertrude. However, Gertrude thinks that he is falling for the charms of up-and-coming actress Lotus Blossom (no, really. That’s her name...) In reality, Lotus is besotted by Ambrose, who thinks that she’s taken a shine to his brother Reggie. But Reggie’s actually enamoured of Mabel Spence, the sister-in-law of movie mogul, Ikey Llewellyn. And Ikey might just be about to employ Ambrose…

A madcap plot of this calibre requires a narrator of extraordinary abilities to keep you abreast of who’s enamoured with whom. The plum-voiced Jonathan Cecil takes the helm here, expertly unravelling the layers of the story, whilst keeping a firm eye on the absurdities of the English upper-classes. This is a tale of quintessentially English dimwittedness and people who have a little too much time and money on their hands. And if Cecil needed any recommendation, it can’t come much higher than the glowing review he received from The Spectator after playing Bertie Wooster in Thank YOU, PG Wodehouse, by being described as one of the best upper-class twits of his generation. A truly double-edged compliment if there ever was one…

But if there’s one thing the English are good at, it’s laughing at themselves. Pour yourself a snifter, break out the cucumber sandwiches and enjoy this excellent CD audiobook.