Revisiting these 1949 recordings I find the ‘precious’ pronunciation of the immediate post­Second World War D’Oyly Carte company one of the most immediately striking features. How times and conventions have changed! Though the affliction is most obvious in the chorus‚ it spreads also to the romantic lead singers‚ Muriel Harding and Leonard Osborn‚ the former of whom also sounds disappointingly tentative. In Pirates of Penzance Ella Halman is an unusually plummy Ruth; but her singing does contribute to a curiously mechanical feel about the performance‚ despite the usually admirable Isidore Godfrey at the helm. Even the Major­General of Martyn Green‚ one of the most verbally adept of D’Oyly Carte principal comedians‚ fails to dispel the impression of a curiously matter­of­fact and under­characterised performance. That the entertainment level does pick up even more than usual in Act 2 owes much to an excellent cameo performance by Richard Watson as a fruity Sergeant of Police. I find the Trial by Jury recording‚ made a month earlier‚ altogether more involving and convincing. Both Harding and Osborn come across as much more relaxed and sweeter of voice‚ but I think the key factor is once again the appearance of Richard Watson as the Learned Judge. Instead of the role being played by the company’s leading comedian as usual‚ here we have a genuinely operatic bass‚ who sang at Covent Garden in the early­1930s. His commanding but roguish­sounding interpretation‚ together with Leslie Rands’s crisply persuasive Council for the Plaintiff‚ helps make this one of the most appealing versions of this work on record. Even for the excellent Trial by Jury I could not recommend this coupling over more modern versions. However‚ collectors of successive generations of D’Oyly Carte performances should be delighted to have the two recordings so excellently transferred at so modest a price.