Love Among the Chickens

Jeremy Garnet

Garnet is the dry, self-aware eye through which Ukridge's chicken farm becomes a comedy of escalating debt and dwindling dinners. He wants quiet and a finished manuscript, but finds himself hauling coops, chasing stray fowls, and watching his friend's creditors close in. His growing attachment to Phyllis Derrick gives the farm scheme a second, more personal stake.

Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge

Ukridge is the farm's managing director, chief optimist, and most unreliable authority on anything with feathers. He reasons that mixed breeds will lay regardless, that coops can be built from sugar boxes on tick, and that creditors are simply impatient. His infectious confidence keeps the scheme alive even as the bills arrive in battalions.

Phyllis Derrick

Phyllis moves easily through Combe Regis society, reading under the cedar, playing a sharp game of croquet, and gently needling Garnet about his authorial surname. She is amused by the farm's chaos and drawn to the man narrating it, though her father's opinions complicate matters. Her interest gives Garnet something to lose besides money.

Tom Chase

Chase is the social hinge of Combe Regis, comfortable with the professor, the golf links, and the drawing-room alike. He is curious about the infamous chicken farm and treats its failures as excellent dinner-table material. His easy competence throws Garnet's floundering into sharper, funnier relief.

Mrs. Stanley Ukridge

Mrs. Ukridge presides over the farmhouse with a childlike calm that survives arriving fowls, mounting bills, and her husband's grand pronouncements. She is the only person on the premises who can disagree with Ukridge, and she does so chiefly over Edwin, her lawless pet. Her quiet loyalty makes the farm's slow unraveling feel like a domestic tragedy rather than a mere farce.

Harry Hawk

Hawk is a village laborer caught between Garnet's schemes and the professor's sense of propriety, a man whose livelihood depends on the whims of his betters. He becomes the unwitting instrument of a prank that nearly costs him his reputation and his custom. His fate is a small reminder that Ukridge's adventures have consequences beyond the farmyard.