Track Listing

1. Company
2. The Little Things You Do Together
3. Sorry Gratefull
4. You Could Drive A Person Crazy
5. Have I Got A Girl For You
6. Someone Is Waiting
7. Another Hundred People
8. Getting Married Today
9. Mary Me A Little
10. Side By Side/What Would We Do Without You?
11. Poor Baby
12. Barcelona
13. The Ladies Who Lunch
14. Being Alive

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #173822 in Music
• Released on: 1996-07-30
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Cast Recording

Amazon.com
While the original version of Company is still indispensable for any self-respecting Broadway fan, this London revival directed by Sam Mendes has enough sharp edges to make it a welcome addition. The anger underlining "You Could Drive a Person Crazy" is more forceful than ever (especially with loud-and-clear interjections like "son of a bitch!"), and the small orchestra plays with uncommon energy. As Robert/Bobby, Adrian Lester injects new resonance into a character usually perceived as being passive: "Barcelona" features some particularly good acting, while "Marry Me a Little is touchingly tender. This version doesn't rank as high as the original one (what could?) but it's more interesting than the 1995 Broadway revival. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

Customer Reviews

a new company
this is a new revolutionary production a company. the 1996 london recording stands as a testement that some times the west end does it better.after the horrible 1995 revival. the london cast was refreshing. adrien lester is soft on the ears.he infuses the lyrics with such tenderness that all else seems not to matter.if you buy this recording expecting something up beat you are getting something totally different.it's a darker recording.but it is wroth looking for.

The perfect night of listening:company-original broadway cast
-1996 london revival cast
-2006 broadway revival cast

As Good as Broadway With Some Improvement
A uniformly excellent recording of this outstanding show. The song readings are so similar in general they don't merit comparison with two exceptions -

Dean Jones/Larry ___'s versions of Being Alive are much better - perhaps the song speaks to an American id; and
this version of Ladies Who Lunch does not have the hystrionics that Elaine Strich slops all over the American version, with better results, IMO.

Meanwhile, Company lovers, watch and wait with bated breath for the revised version (ala the recent Sweeney Todd with Patty LuPone - created by the same team, with SS's involvement) due on Broadway fall 2006. This show premiered in Cincinnati spring 2006 with Raul Esparza as Bobbie and a fine surrounding cast. I had the honor of seeing this production twice and was awed. The simpler, cleaner orchestrations let Sondheim's lyrics show to their best advantage without sacrificing any characterization and the cast knows to let themselves be instruments in the finest sense of the phrase.

Bad Company
The final COMPANY cast album is easily the least impressive of the bunch. It's a natural bias after 35 years of listening to the original cast to question a new approach, but the recording quickly slides off the rails and never fully recovers.

It starts off interestingly: An a-capella choral version of the Bobby Baby theme, but as soon as Adrian Lester brings his thin sounding voice to Bobby solo section of the opening number, something s wrong. And if Debra Monk was not world=-weary enough in the 1995 Broadway revival, Sheila Gish overdoes the slurring in her whisky-soaked interpretation of The Little things You Do Together. The trio of girlfriends screech too much seemingly forcing the voices into uncomfortable ranges, proper harmony, and Sophie Thomson slows down Getting married Today robbing the song of much vitality. Like the Roundabout recording this version interpolates Marry Me a Little but Lester's reedy singing voice all but ruins it. This production drops the Tick Tock dance and the finale so the disc clocks in as the shortest of the four. First Night recorded it England, and RCA Victor released it in the United States and Canada only to withdraw it when sales were weak.