Count Arthur Strong Audiobooks

Through It All I've Always Laughed: comic memoir from a self-declared national treasure

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.4/5 average

546 listener ratings

Who is Count Arthur Strong?

Count Arthur Strong is not a biography so much as a performance. The character, created and played by Steve Delaney, is an ageing variety entertainer with a magnificent opinion of himself, a shaky grip on the English language and a career that exists mostly in his own retelling. He reached national affection through BBC radio comedy before arriving on television.

The book we hold is written in that voice, and the voice is the joke: a showbusiness memoir that quietly parodies showbusiness memoirs, offering grandeur where there ought to be modesty and detail where there ought to be discretion. Our catalogue files it under comedy and humour alongside arts and entertainment, and between them those two labels cover the ground exactly.

Count Arthur Strong in audiobooks

Through It All I’ve Always Laughed runs to just under five hours and is read, inevitably and correctly, by the Count himself. This is one of those rare cases where the audio edition is the definitive one. On the page the mangled words are funny; spoken aloud, with the pauses and the wounded dignity intact, they are considerably funnier. Listeners here have rated it 4.4 across several hundred reviews.

No prior acquaintance with the radio series is required, though devotees will catch a good deal more. Settle in for an evening, expect the truth to be treated as a flexible commodity, and find the audiobook below.