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Don't Tell Alfred

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Don't Tell Alfred

By: Nancy Mitford
Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Don't Tell Alfred is the wickedly funny sequel to Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate.

I believe it would have been normal for me to have paid a visit to the outgoing ambassadress. However the said ambassadress had set up such an uninhibited wail when she knew she was to leave, proclaiming her misery to all and sundry and refusing so furiously to look on the bright side, that it was felt she might not be very nice to me.

Fanny is married to absent-minded Oxford don Alfred and content with her role as a plain, tweedy housewife. But overnight her life changes when Alfred is appointed English ambassador to Paris. In the blink of an eye, Fanny's mixing with royalty, Rothschilds and Dior-clad wives, throwing cocktail parties and having every indiscreet remark printed in tomorrow's papers.

But with the love lives of her new friends to organise, an aristocratic squatter who won't budge and the antics of her maverick sons to thwart, Fanny's far too busy to worry about the diplomatic crisis looming on the horizon....

©1960 Nancy Mitford (P)2021 Penguin Audio
Classics Family Life Literature & Fiction Fiction Funny
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Critic reviews

"A comic genius." (Independent on Sunday)

"Deliciously funny." (Evelyn Waugh)

What listeners say about Don't Tell Alfred

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Accents are a bit distracting

Agree with the other reviewers that the accents are a bit limited/annoying. Also found it odd that Grace was given a French accent when the character has lived in France but is English and lived in England until she was an adult so would probably not speak English with a massively pronounced French accent.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Awful narrator

Sorry but I could hardly listen to the awful narrator. Totally spoilt any enjoyment of the story.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Awful accents.

Really struggling with this. The narrator isn't able to do more than about 3 different voices with any aplomb. So once those were exhausted it's positively jarring. Slowing down to about 90% speed makes it almost bearable but only in short bursts.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Worst narration ever

Couldn’t even get past chapter 2 owing to the terrible narration, completely ruined the story. Regretful purchase

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Weak story, poor performance

This is gently amusing but the poor narration makes it almost impossible to listen to, with exaggerated accents that are really unpleasant.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Lacklustre story, terrible narrator

The book is the poor third of of the trilogy about Fanny, lacking the warmth and wit of the other two and it has the useless and annoying Northy, whom Fanny apparently dotes upon for no discernable reason.The narrator gets two stars except for her male voices, which are gruff, slow and affected and bring the performance down to a single star. Returned.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

By far the weakest story of the three

I read the book decades ago and became more aware that this is the weakest of the Love in a Cold Climate series of novels. To my shame I had no idea who Adjoah Andoh was, then having watched "Bridgerton" the penny dropped. I can see why Ms Andoh was asked to read the book and she does very well, with very irritating and silly material. Miss Mitford recognised that this was the least successful novel of the series and it was the last novel she was to write. Personally the absence of black humour/darkness so present in her two most famous novels gives too much room for the twittery of Northey - a character that I cannot bear.

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