Joey Cooley is a golden-curled child film star, the idol of American motherhood. Reginald, Third Earl of Havershot, is a boxing blue on a mission to save his wayward cousin from the fleshpots of Hollywood. Both are under anaesthetic at the dentists when something strange happens - and their identities are swapped in the ether.

Suddenly Joey can use his six-foot frame to get his own back on his Hollywood persecutors. But Reggie has to endure everything Joey had to put up with in the horrible life of a child star - including kidnap.

Laughing Gas is Wodehouse's brilliantly funny take on the 'If I were you' theme - a wry look at the dangers of getting what you wish for in the movie business and beyond.

Review
"It's dangerous to use the word genius to describe a writer, but I'll risk it with him" (John Humphrys)

"For as long as I'm immersed in a P.G. Wodehouse book, it's possible to keep the real world at bay and live in a far, far nicer, funnier one where happy endings are the order of the day" (Marian Keyes)

"Wodehouse always lifts your spirits, no matter how high they happen to be already" (Lynne Truss)

"The incomparable and timeless genius - perfect for readers of all ages, shapes and sizes!" (Kate Mosse)

"Not only the funniest English novelist who ever wrote but one of our finest stylists" (Susan Hill

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (always known as ‘Plum’) wrote about seventy novels and some three hundred short stories over 73 years. He is widely recognised as the greatest 20th-century writer of humour in the English language.

Perhaps best known for the escapades of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, Wodehouse also created the world of Blandings Castle, home to Lord Emsworth and his cherished pig, the Empress of Blandings. His stories include gems concerning the irrepressible and disreputable Ukridge; Psmith, the elegant socialist; the ever-so-slightly-unscrupulous Fifth Earl of Ickenham, better known as Uncle Fred; and those related by Mr Mulliner, the charming raconteur of The Angler’s Rest, and the Oldest Member at the Golf Club.

In 1936 he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for ‘having made an outstanding and lasting contribution to the happiness of the world’. He was made a Doctor of Letters by Oxford University in 1939 and in 1975, aged 93, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He died shortly afterwards, on St Valentine’s Day.