Roderick Spode

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 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.

Overview

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 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).