Don't Tell Alfred cover art

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 Genre Fiction Literature & Fiction Fiction Funny

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Critic reviews

"A comic genius." (Independent on Sunday)

"Deliciously funny." (Evelyn Waugh)
All stars
Most relevant
This is gently amusing but the poor narration makes it almost impossible to listen to, with exaggerated accents that are really unpleasant.

Weak story, poor performance

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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.

Lacklustre story, terrible narrator

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I only managed to get to the end of this book out of a sense of loyalty to Nancy Mitford. Having listened to, and really enjoyed the previous two books, this was a trial 😞. The story wasnt as engaging - only saved by the presence of the 'old' characters. Northey is THE most irritating character ever to have been created and I'm afraid the narration was almost as irritating as Northey......but, I stuck it out and wish I hadn't!

Disappointing

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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.

Accents are a bit distracting

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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.

Awful accents.

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