Cerrie Burnell Mermaid

Cerrie Burnell uncovers the shocking story of how disabled people in Britain were shut out of society for decades – and how they fought back. For more than a century, one group of people in Britain has been shut out of society, denied basic human rights and treated with fear and prejudice.

Celebrity presenters look at the development of the NHS through their own often harrowing personal experiences.

Mark and Anne (Pringle) Burnell, partners in life as well as music, haven’t made a true duo album since 2000, when they released Little Things We Do Together. In the intervening years, there have been plenty of things – big as well as little – that they’ve done together: Mark almost always accompanies Anne, on stage and on her own discs. But Two for the Road is the first album in 20 years on which they share the marquee and blend their voices, making this album long overdue.

Despite having chosen Arlen songs with primarily sad lyrics, Anne Burnell's CD is not one of those collections of laments which "cry" out to be listened to with a pint of whiskey and a quart of self-pity. She does not wallow in melodrama, and the light, jazzy arrangements keep things sunny enough, despite the foreboding musical weather forecast: "Stormy Weather," "Ill Wind" and "Come Rain Or Come Shine." She seems to be "Happy With The Blues," a 1961 tune with a lyric by Peggy Lee (it also served as the title of a biography of Harold Arlen - sadly, his biographer Edward Jablonski died about a year before the centennial kicked off). Known as Anne Pringle before her marriage to pianist Mark Burnell, who plays solidly on the CD and co-produced it with her, the singer is based in Chicago.