Tuppy Glossop

Hildebrand "Tuppy" Glossop is a fictional character appearing in some of P. G. Wodehouse Jeeves books. He is a member of the Drones Club and a good friend of Bertie Wooster. In Right Ho, Jeeves, we learn that Tuppy is of Scottish origin.

Relationships

Tuppy is engaged to Bertie's favourite cousin, Angela Travers. Jeeves has ruined Tuppy's relationships with the opera singer Cora Bellinger and the dog lover Miss Dalgleish in order to keep Tuppy with Angela, usually upon the request of Angela's mother (Bertie's Aunt Dahlia). In Right Ho, Jeeves, Angela breaks the engagement because Tuppy disparages a shark that had attacked her while she was aquaplaning in Cannes. Bertie makes an attempt to restore the status quo with disastrous results, causing Jeeves to step in and restore their engagement with his normal brilliance.

Tuppy's uncle is Bertie's nemesis (and later good friend) Sir Roderick Glossop and his cousin is Bertie's ex-fiancée Honoria Glossop.

In the book Much Obliged, Jeeves, Angela and Tuppy haven't married after being two years engaged due to a lack of funds on Tuppy's part. Angela's mother Dahlia takes it upon herself to do something about Tuppy's financial woes. She decides that L.P Runkle of Runkle Enterprises owes Tuppy money for Tuppy's late father's invention, a hangover remedy which allowed Runkle to rake in millions, while Tuppy's father did not make any profit on the invention. She subsequently attempts to extort the money from Runkle by pinching his porringer, although that had proved to be a bust. With Jeeves's brilliance and the Junior Ganymede Club book she manages to make Runkle cough up the money.

Bertie reminisces quite frequently about a practical joke Tuppy played on him where one evening at the Drones Club, Tuppy dared Bertie to swing across the club swimming pool by means of the exercise rings. Bertie made quick work of the challenge only to discover that Tuppy had looped the last ring back, necessitating a fall into the water in full evening dress. Despite this recollection being fresh in his mind, Bertie unfailingly helps Tuppy out of several sticky situations, especially those involving his cousin Angela.

Character

Tuppy has a rather vengeful nature as shown in Right Ho, Jeeves when he dismisses a shark that attacked Angela as a flatfish that wanted to play because Angela had previously commented that he was getting fat. Besides this, he has a jealous side as he chases Bertie, threatening to turn him inside out and make him swallow himself, when he was under the misapprehension that Bertie stole Angela's affection from him while at Cannes. He also has shown a lack of tact, once remarking to Angela that her new hat made her look like a raccoon peering out from underneath a flowerpot. He was also known to remark that a different hat made Miss Travers resemble a Pekingese.

Television Portrayal

In the ITV series Jeeves and Wooster, Tuppy is played by Robert Daws.^[1] Tuppy is involved in several stories in which his engagement to Angela Travers falters because of his tactlessness, and he is easily drawn further away from her by attractions to others. Jeeves successfully restores their union up until Series 4. After this, Tuppy gets involved in several schemes to make fast money, but has no success. One of these has catastrophic results in the final episode. Having invested in an dodgy invention to permanently unblock sewage pipes, Tuppy is persuaded by Bertie to use it at Totleigh Towers, despite having a severe run-in with Roderick Spode at a Blackshorts rally. He therefore adopts the disguise of a vulgar tradesman, but is then blackmailed into stealing the Ganymede Club Book from Florence Craye, she having confiscated it from the thieving ex-valet Brinkley. Tuppy is discovered and loses his disguise in the struggle, and is consequently attacked by Spode and forced to flee. His plumbing machine later ruins Madeline and Spode's wedding and wreaks havoc on Totleigh Towers, resulting in Bertie and Jeeves being pursued by an enraged mob of wedding guests.

Cultural references

In a radio episode of Dad's Army entitled 'We Know our Onions', Sergeant Wilson mentions that the Eastgate platoon includes a Tuppy Glossop whose "people knew my people".

References