Noël Coward: Mad Dogs and Englishmen CD - Memory Lane

To listen to Noël Coward is to be reminded that wit and sentiment are not opposites — that a song can make you laugh and ache in the same breath, and that the English language, in the right hands, is capable of almost anything. Mad Dogs and Englishmen, presented here as part of the Memory Lane archive series with digitally enhanced sound, gathers twenty-four of Coward's finest recordings into a single disc that serves as both a definitive introduction and a deeply pleasurable revisit for those who already know his work.

The range is characteristic: from the affectionate mockery of Mrs Worthington — his celebrated plea to a stage mother of catastrophic ambition — to the imperial absurdity of the title track, Mad Dogs and Englishmen, which remains one of the most perfectly observed comic songs in the English repertoire. There is the wartime defiance of London Pride and Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans, the wistful romanticism of A Room With a View and World Weary, and the gentle melancholy of The Party's Over Now — a song that closes an evening as gracefully as any ever written.

Throughout, Coward's voice — clipped, precise, and capable of conveying entire emotional landscapes in a single raised eyebrow of a phrase — is in complete command. These archive recordings, digitally enhanced for this release, preserve the essential character of performances that have never dated. A disc to return to again and again.

Track Listing

1. This Is a Changing World
2. Mrs Worthington
3. Mad Dogs and Englishmen
4. You'd Best Nice to Come Home To
5. His Excellency Regrets
6. Still Away
7. I Travel Alone
8. London Pride
9. Never Again
10. Poor Little Rich Girl
11. Let's Say Goodbye
12. Fare Thee Well
13. Could You Please Oblige Us With a Bren Gun?
14. World Weary
15. A Room With a View
16. The Last Time I Saw Paris
17. Just Let Me Look at You
18. Imagine the Duchess's Feelings!
19. Any Little Fish
20. Old Fashioned
21. The Party's Over Now
22. I Wonder What Happened to Him?
23. Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans
24. The Dream Is Over

Product Specifications

• Artist: Noël Coward
• Series: Memory Lane Presents
• Label: Memory Lane / Pickwick
• Catalogue Number: PCD 829
• Format: Audio CD
• Tracks: 24
• Genre: British Vocal / Comedy / Cabaret / Archive / 1930s–1940s
• Recording Type: Archive recordings, digitally enhanced
• Weight: 127 g (4.48 oz)
• Dimensions (standard jewel case): 142 mm × 125 mm × 10 mm (5.6 in × 4.9 in × 0.4 in)
• Barcode: 5034504285923
• Condition: Preloved