Michael Flanders

Michael Henry Flanders (1 March 1922 – 14 April 1975) was an English actor, broadcaster, writer and performer of comic songs. He is best known for his stage partnership with Donald Swann.

As a young man Flanders seemed to be heading for a successful acting career. However, he contracted polio in 1943 while serving in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and for the rest of his life was reliant on a wheelchair. He made a career as a prolific broadcaster on the radio and later on television. Moreover, he together with his old school friend, the composer Donald Swann, wrote successful songs in the late 1940s to the early and mid-1950s for revues in the West End of London. In 1956 they themselves performed some of these songs, along with new songs, in a two-man revue, At the Drop of a Hat. This show, and its successor, At the Drop of Another Hat, ran with occasional short breaks from 1956 to 1967 and played in theatres throughout the British Isles, the US, Australia and elsewhere.

During and after the stage partnership with Swann, Flanders pursued a many-faceted career, performing on stage, screen, radio, concert platforms and recordings. He wrote opera librettos, a children's book, a volume of poetry and the words of Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo, a cantata about Noah's Ark.

Birth and Death Data: Born London (capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom), Died April 14, 1975 (Q203387 (town and community in Conwy County Borough, Wales, UK) )

Roles Represented in DAHR: narrator

= Recordings are available for online listening.
= Recordings were issued from this master. No recordings issued from other masters.

Recordings

Company Matrix No. Size First Recording Date Title Primary Performer Description Role Audio

Citation

Discography of American Historical Recordings, s.v. "Flanders, Michael," accessed December 25, 2025, http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/315531.

Flanders, Michael. (2025). In Discography of American Historical Recordings. Retrieved December 25, 2025, from http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/315531.

"Flanders, Michael." Discography of American Historical Recordings. UC Santa Barbara Library, 2025. Web. 25 December 2025.

DAHR Persistent Identifier

URI: http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/315531

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