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Blackshorts

Roderick Spode
RoderickSpode.jpg
Roderick Spode, as played by John Turner
First appearance The Code of the Woosters (1938)
Last appearance Much Obliged, Jeeves (1971)
Created by P. G. Wodehouse
Portrayed by John Turner
Information
Gender Male
Occupation Fascist politician and designer of ladies' lingerie
Title The 7th Earl of Sidcup
Relatives The 6th Earl of Sidcup (uncle)
Nationality British

Roderick Spode, 7th Earl of Sidcup, often known as Spode or Lord Sidcup, is a recurring fictional character from the Jeeves novels of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being a Nazi Sympathizer, an "amateur dictator" and the leader of a fictional fascist group in London called The Black Shorts. In the 1990s television series Jeeves and Wooster he is portrayed by John Turner and depicted as having a rather Hitleresque appearance.

Spode is a large and intimidating figure, appearing "as if Nature had intended to make a gorilla, and had changed its mind at the last moment". He is often seen wearing the brown short uniform identical to Hitler's. He is constantly in love with Madeline Bassett, and though he intended to remain a bachelor during his career as a dictator, he nevertheless attempted to protect her from men "playing fast and loose"; to this end, he threatened on several occasions to beat Bertie Wooster and Gussie Fink-Nottle to a jelly. He marches his followers around London and the countryside, preaching loudly to the public on the dissoluteness of modern society until a heckler hits him in the eye with a potato (reinterpreted in the TV series as turnips thrown by Barmy and Tuppy). His appearance in the TV series is an obvious spoof of Adolf Hitler and his mannerisms and attitude are very similar.

Spode is modelled after Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, who were nicknamed the blackshirts. Spode was at first an 'amateur dictator' who led a farcical group of fascists called the Saviours of Britain, better known as the Black Shorts. Spode adopted black shorts as a uniform because, according to Gussie Fink-Nottle in The Code of the Woosters, "by the time Spode formed his association, there were no shirts left" – alluding to various radical groups: Mussolini's Blackshirts, Hitler's Brownshirts, the Irish Blueshirts and Greenshirts, the South African Greyshirts, Mexico's Gold shirts, and the American Silver Shirts. Bertie Wooster believes that wearing black shorts is an extreme social and sartorial faux pas (shorts being inappropriate for a grown man outside a sporting context) and uses it to make fun of Spode:


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