"Life's like that sometimes, isn't it?" — Stanshall prepares to sing "The Sound of Music" with the Bonzo Dog Band on Do Not Adjust Your Set.

Vivian Stanshall (21 March 1943 – 5 March 1995) was an English musician, painter, singer, broadcaster, songwriter, poet, writer, wit, and raconteur, best known for his work with the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, for his surreal exploration of the British upper classes in Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, and for narrating Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (968x572, 233 KB) Summary Taken by the uploader using a digital camera pointed at screen. ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (968x572, 233 KB) Summary Taken by the uploader using a digital camera pointed at screen. ... The Bonzo Dog Band (also known as The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, The Bonzo Dog Dada Band and, colloquially, as The Bonzos) was a band created by a group of British art-school denizens of the 1960s. ... From left to right: David Jason, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, and Eric Idle. ... March 21 is the 80th day of the year (81st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the day. ... Year 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full 1995 Gregorian calendar). ... Motto (French) God and my right Anthem No official anthem - the United Kingdom anthem God Save the Queen is commonly used England() – on the European continent() – in the United Kingdom() Capital (and largest city) London (de facto) Official languages English (de facto)1 Unified  -  by Athelstan 927 AD  Area  -  Total... The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (more often the Bonzo Dog Band or to fans simply the Bonzos) were the brainchild of a British art-school set of the 1960s. ... Michael Gordon Oldfield (born May 15, 1953 in Reading, England) is a multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, working a style that blends progressive rock, folk, ethnic or world music, classical music, electronic music and more recently dance. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ...

The great eccentric

Stanshall was often called a "great British eccentric", but this was a label he hated: it suggested that he was putting on an act and he always insisted that he was merely being himself. However, it is not difficult to understand why he received the label. Neil Innes said of their first meeting: "He was quite plump in those days. He had on Billy Bunter check trousers, a Victorian frock coat, violet pince-nez glasses, and carried a euphonium. He also wore large pink rubber ears." Neil Innes (born Neil James Innes, 9 December 1944, in Danbury, Essex) is an English writer and performer of comic songs, best known for playing in the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and later The Rutles. ... Billy Bunter, the Fat blaen-y-maes man, is a real character created by Charles Hamilton (using the nom de plume of Frank Richards) for stories set at Greyfriars School in the boys weekly magazine The Magnet (published from 1908 to 1940). ... Theodore Roosevelt wearing pince-nez Pince-nez (also known as Oxford glasses) are a style of spectacles, popular in the 19th century, which are supported without earpieces, by pinching the bridge of the nose. ... The euphonium is a conical-bore, baritone-voiced brass instrument. ...

Early life

Stanshall was born on 21 March, 1943 at the Radcliffe Maternity Home in Shillingford, and christened Victor Anthony Stanshall. , Shillingford is a village in the civil parish of Warborough, in the English county of Oxfordshire. ...

Originally from Walthamstow — a suburb on the borders of East London and Essex — his mother Eileen (1911–1999) had moved to Shillingford, Oxfordshire during the Second World War to escape the bombing, and lived there happily with her son while her husband, Victor (1909–1990) (a name he had adopted in preference to his own christened name of Vivian), served in the RAF. With the end of war, the little family moved back to Walthamstow and his father returned. Walthamstow is a town in the London Borough of Waltham Forest, north east London, England. ... Housing subdivision near Union, Kentucky, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. ... Year 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar). ... , Shillingford is a village in the civil parish of Warborough, in the English county of Oxfordshire. ... Oxfordshire (abbreviated Oxon, from the Latinised form Oxonia) is a county in the South East of England, bordering on Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Warwickshire. ... Year 1990 (MCMXC) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar). ... The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the air force branch of the British Armed Forces. ...

Stanshall's brother, Mark, was born fairly soon after this return. They were six years apart, an age difference that apparently put a certain amount of emotional distance in their relationship.

Although he was of working class origins, Stanshall's father wanted his sons to go to public school and pressed them to perform well in sports. Young Vic, however, was uninterested in such pursuits, preferring — to his father's horror — to devote his energies to art, music and literature. This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Consequently, he grew up living a dual life: at home, he would have to speak "properly" or face a beating; on the street he spoke with a broad cockney accent in order to avoid a beating from his peers. St Mary-le-Bow The term cockney refers to working-class inhabitants of London, particularly east London, and the slang used by these people. ...

As a teenager Stanshall secretly joined a gang of teddy boys, attracted both by the rock'n'roll and the clothing. Even among such dandies, though, he was a bit of an oddball. The polished vowels that had been bashed into him kept leaking out, and his cockney mates looked upon him as something of an amusing freak. The Teddy boy youth culture first emerged in Britain (starting in London, but rapidly spreading across the country) during the early 1950s, and soon after became strongly associated with American rock and roll music of the period. ... Rock and roll (also spelled rock n roll, especially in its first decade), also called rock, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony), electric guitars and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. ...

About this time, the Stanshall family moved to the Essex coastal resort of Southend-on-Sea. Here, Stanshall managed to earn some money doing various odd jobs at the Kursaal fun fair. These included working as a bingo caller and spending the winter painting the fairground attractions. Southend-on-Sea is a resort town in Essex, England. ...

To put aside enough money to get himself through art school (his father having refused to fund such goings-on), Stanshall spent a year in the merchant navy, where he made a very bad waiter, but a great teller of tall tales.

He enrolled at the Central School of Art in London. Here, Stanshall and his fellow students, including Rodney Slater, Roger Ruskin Spear and Neil Innes, who was studying music at Goldsmiths College, came together to form a band. Central Saint Martins at Holborn The Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, (or Central Saint Martins) is one of the leading colleges of art and design in England. ... Rodney Desborough Slater (born November 8, 1944) was a member of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, playing saxophones and other instruments (particularly winds). ... Roger Ruskin Spear, the son of Ruskin Spear, was a founder member of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, staying with it until its end. ... Neil Innes (born Neil James Innes, 9 December 1944, in Danbury, Essex) is an English writer and performer of comic songs, best known for playing in the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and later The Rutles. ... Goldsmiths College (founded in 1891 by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths as Goldsmiths Technical and Recreative Institute) has been a part of the federal University of London since 1904, when it took its current name. ...

Stanshall changed his first name to Vivian — the very name his father had abandoned. Those who knew him from his student days continued to call him Vic, however.

The Bonzo years

Main article: Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band

The name of the band came from a word game which Stanshall played with art school peer and Bonzo member Rodney Slater, involving cutting up sentences and juxtaposing the fragments to form new ones. One of the combinations that came out of this exercise was "Bonzo Dog/Dada". The band initially performed under this name, but soon grew tired of explaining what Dada meant. Thus they became the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band — later abbreviated to The Bonzo Dog Band, or just The Bonzos. The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (more often the Bonzo Dog Band or to fans simply the Bonzos) were the brainchild of a British art-school set of the 1960s. ... Rodney Desborough Slater (born November 8, 1944) was a member of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, playing saxophones and other instruments (particularly winds). ... Cover of the first edition of the publication, Dada. ... The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (more often the Bonzo Dog Band or to fans simply the Bonzos) were the brainchild of a British art-school set of the 1960s. ...

The Bonzo Dog Band play The Monster Mash on Do Not Adjust Your Set. From left: Rodney Slater, Vivian Stanshall and Legs Larry Smith just visible on drums to the rear.

In these early days they were a very loose assemblage, consisting of the core members mentioned above, plus just about anyone else who felt like joining in. At times there were as many as 30 of them, with gigs often featuring more people on stage than in the audience. Their act at this time consisted of anarchic re-workings of old British novelty songs, found on 78rpm records bought from flea markets, spiced with improvisation and a variety of bizarre machines assembled from junk, with at least one explosion per gig. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1096x836, 434 KB) Summary Image taken by photographing the television, showing Do Not Adjust Your Set on DVD, constituting Fair Use. ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1096x836, 434 KB) Summary Image taken by photographing the television, showing Do Not Adjust Your Set on DVD, constituting Fair Use. ... From left to right: David Jason, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, and Eric Idle. ...

The Bonzos might have continued in this way, probably disappearing into obscurity, had it not been for a nasty shock: the 1966 chart success of a winsomely arch number called Winchester Cathedral by The New Vaudeville Band — a band comprising session musicians created by songwriter Geoff Stephens, whose musical style was uncannily like the Bonzos' own. So soon as the record became a hit, Stephens and his record company needed a band to present themselves as The New Vaudeville Band. Bob Kerr, a Bonzo member, tried convincing the others that they should craft a similar sound to achieve greater commercial success, but the advice was rejected. Still, the remaining Bonzos realised that if they were to make a mark for themselves, they would have to forge a new path. The New Vaudeville Band was a group created by songwriter Geoff Stephens in 1966 to record his novelty composition Winchester Cathedral, a song inspired by the dance bands of the 1920s. ...

According to the band's manager Gerry Bron, Vivian Stanshall was given several weeks to produce songs for the new professional Bonzo Dog Band. When people arrived at his studio they found he had written nothing and had instead focused on nothing more than building a variety of rabbit hutches (Originals – Vivian Stanshall: The Canyons of His Mind, BBC/October Films, BBC4, 2004). From here on, they started writing their own material and dropping it into the act alongside the old novelty numbers. With Stanshall now liberated from his original role as tuba player and firmly established as the front man, the act became more sophisticated, more daring, satirical, and original. Aside from the adventurous music and lyrics, it was quite a performance: Stanshall sang, played a variety of instruments and on a good night would also perform a prolonged fully-clothed strip mime, culminating in some spectacular tit-juggling. Stanshall provided one of the highlights of the show: a vulgar joke about Jesus. This article is about Jesus of Nazareth. ...

For a while the band existed as a semi-pro outfit playing the college circuit, but it wasn't long before they acquired a manager, went full time, and found themselves booked on the working men's club circuit mainly in the north of England. The band dominated their lives, traveling to low-paying gigs in an old van crammed with any number of musical instruments, an assortment of props, and prop robots. In 1967, they appeared in The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour television special playing Death Cab for Cutie during the strip club scene, and this was followed by a slot as the house band on Do Not Adjust Your Set, a weekly TV revue show also notable for early appearances by most of the Monty Python troupe. Album cover This work is copyrighted. ... The White Album, see The Beatles (album). ... Magical Mystery Tour is an album by British rock band The Beatles, first released in late November 1967. ... Death Cab for Cutie is a song composed by Vivian Stanshall and performed by himself and his Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, which was included on their 1967 album Gorilla. ... From left to right: David Jason, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, and Eric Idle. ... Monty Python, or The Pythons, is the collective name of the creators of Monty Pythons Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. ...

In 1968 the Bonzos scored a surprise top ten hit with a number called "I'm the Urban Spaceman" but they never repeated that success although Stanshall, through his many costumes, became a fore runner of America's Martin Mull. Martin Mull (born August 18, 1943) is an American actor who has starred in his own TV sitcom and acted in prominent films. ...

The band toured incessantly and recorded several albums, which led to a tour of the United States. This was so successful that they were booked for another US tour soon after. Neil Innes remembers that the band were reportedly stopped by a local U.S. sheriff and asked if they were carrying any firearms or drugs. When they denied both, the officer asked how they were going to defend themselves. Viv Stanshall piped up from the back of the minibus, "With good manners!" (Originals – Vivian Stanshall: The Canyons of His Mind, BBC/October Films, BBC4, 2004)

Between the tours, however, something brought about a crippling change in Stanshall's personality. None of his fellow Bonzos claims to know just what caused it, but by the start of the second tour he was taking very large doses of tranquillisers prescribed by a private doctor (Originals – Vivian Stanshall: The Canyons of His Mind, BBC/October Films, BBC4, 2004), ostensibly to treat stage-fright. Nevertheless, the workload never let up. The band had a punishing schedule, often playing more than one gig per evening. In 1970, after six years of mounting exhaustion and depression, Stanshall quit.

After the Bonzo Dog Band

Stanshall went on to form various short-lived groups including The Sean Head Band, Bonzo Dog Freaks, (featuring the guitar talents of the rotund Bubs White) and BiG GrunT. At one point, he even went into teaching art and drama at a boys' secondary modern school in Surrey. By now, his life was dogged by alcoholism and panic attacks, which he tried to control with Valium; he would have these problems for the rest of his life. He had several spells in hospitals in attempts to stop or control his drinking, but they never worked (this was before the existence of modern-day notions of drug rehabilitation). He was also still being prescribed larger and larger doses of Valium, which, he later reported, made things worse by simply adding another addiction. Not to be confused with Surry. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Panic Disorder. ...

For all his problems, Stanshall never lost his sense of humour. In particular, his exploits with close friend Keith Moon are legendary, perhaps the most notorious involving Stanshall going into an unsuspecting tailor's shop and admiring a pair of trousers; Moon then came in, posing as another customer, admired the same trousers and demanded to buy them. When Stanshall protested the two men fought over them, splitting them in two so they ended up with one leg each. The tailor was by now beside himself but right then a one-legged actor, who had been hired by Stanshall and Moon, came in, saw the trousers and proclaimed "Ah! Just what I was looking for." Keith John Moon (August 23, 1946 – September 7, 1978) was the drummer of the rock group The Who. ...

Aside from such pranks, the two also worked together. For instance, when Stanshall took over the John Peel radio show for awhile, Moon appeared as Lemmy in the saga of Colonel Knutt, idiot adventurer-detective. Moon also produced Stanshall's recorded maniacal version of Terry Stafford's Suspicion. “Peel Sessions” redirects here. ... Terry LaVerne Stafford was an American singer and songwriter, best known for his 1964 US Top Ten hit Suspicion. Stafford was born in Hollis, Oklahoma on 22 November 1941 and died in Amarillo, Texas on 17 March 1996. ...

In early 1974, Stanshall wrote, arranged, and recorded his first solo album, Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead. A complex, idiosyncratic affair, its lyrics were acutely personal insights laced with poetry, as well as overt references to his own penis. The album has a jazz-rock flavour, rich with African percussion. Such artists as his friend Steve Winwood, Innes, Bubs White, Jim Capaldi, Ric Grech, Doris Troy, and Madeline Bell made guest appearances. Jazz fusion (sometimes referred to simply as fusion) is a musical genre that loosely encompasses the merging of jazz with other styles, particularly rock, funk, R&B, and world music. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Jim Capaldi (2 August 1944 – 28 January 2005) was an English musician and songwriter and a founding member of Traffic. ... Richard Roman Grech, November 1, 1946 – March 17, 1990. ... Doris Troy (January 6, 1937 - February 16, 2004) was an R&B singer, known to her many fans as Mama Soul. ... Madeline Bell (born July 23, 1942 in Newark, New Jersey) is an African-American Soul singer who became famous as a performer in England. ...

Rawlinson End

Stanshall's next big success was Rawlinson End. In the 1970s he recorded numerous sessions for BBC Radio 1's John Peel show which elaborated, with a mixture of eloquence and irreverence, on the weird and wonderful adventures of the inebriated and blimpish Sir Henry Rawlinson, his dotty wife Great Aunt Florrie, his "unusual" brother Hubert (who, for speed, stature and far-seeing, habitually goes on stilts), old Scrotum the wrinkled retainer, Mrs E, the rambling and unhygienic cook, and many other inhabitants of the crumbly Rawlinson End, plus its environs. This page redirects from Radio 1. See Radio 1 (disambiguation). ... The cartoonist David Low first drew Colonel Blimp for Lord Beaverbrooks London Evening Standard in the 1930s: pompous, irascible, jingoistic and stereotypically English. ...

The Rawlinson family had been populating Stanshall's imagination for quite a while, their very first appearance (in name, at least) being on the Bonzos' 1967 number The Intro & The Outro: "Great to hear the Rawlinsons on trombone".

An LP, Sir Henry At Rawlinson End, which reworked some of the material from the Peel sessions, appeared in 1978. A sepia-tinted black and white film version of Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (recently released on DVD), starring Trevor Howard as Sir Henry, and Stanshall as Hubert, followed in 1980. It was also based on the Peel recordings, with many variations from the LP. Some of the film's music was provided by Stanshall's friend Steve Winwood. A book of the same name by Stanshall, illustrated with stills from the film, was published by Eel Pie Publishing in 1980. Nominally a film novelisation, it was distilled from all the various versions of the story, including a good deal of material that was not used in the film. It has been suggested that Childrens gramophone records be merged into this article or section. ... Sir Henry at Rawlinson End is a recording by Vivian Stanshall published on the Virgin Chattering label. ... Sir Henry at Rawlinson End is a 1980 British film based on the eponymous character created by Vivian Stanshall. ... Trevor Howard, CBE (29 September 1913 – 7 January 1988), born Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith, was an English movie, stage and television actor. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Eel Pie Publishing is a publishing house founded by musician and author Pete Townshend in 1977, and named after Eel Pie Island. ...

A projected second book, The Eating at Rawlinson End, never appeared. It was to have started:

"In the blue wardrobe of heaven are many unused clothes, too tight-fitting yet too beautiful to throw away. And in that wardrobe we hang our likenesses, yellow diaries yellowed with yesterday, thumb smeared with tomorrow. But the now, the present, like the hollow screech of ancient flamingos in search of shrimps, is still vibrantly shocking pink."

A second Rawlinson album, Sir Henry at Ndidi's Kraal (1983), recounts Sir Henry's disastrous African expedition, but omits the rest of the Rawlinson clan. According to Stanshall's widow, he regarded this recording as sub-standard and it was released against his wishes. Stanshall was often drunk and/or depressed during production, which took place on The Searchlight, a house boat he bought from Wings' Denny Laine and moored between Shepperton and Chertsey on the River Thames. He lived on it from 1977 to 1983. Converted from a Second World War era submarine-chaser, it was forever taking on water and sank with all his possessions aboard. Almost all of them were retrieved, some the worse for water damage. Wings was a rock music band led by Paul McCartney and formed in August 1971, shortly after the breakup of The Beatles. ... Denny Laine (born Brian Hines, on 29 October 1944, in Birmingham) is an English songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, best known for his roles as former guitarist and lead singer of The Moody Blues and, later, co-founder (along with Paul McCartney) of Wings. ... Map of Shepperton (from OpenStreetMap) Shepperton is a small town in Surrey in the borough of Spelthorne, in England. ... Map of Chertsey (from OpenStreetMap) Chertsey Bridge The Old Town Hall Chertsey is a town in Surrey, England, on the River Thames, and its tributary rivers such as the River Bourne. ... The Thames is a river flowing through southern England, and one of the major waterways in England. ...

At Christmas 1996, BBC Radio 4 fished some of the Peel show recordings out of the vault for a late-night repeat, but there seems to be little chance of a commercial release, though some have appeared on a bootleg CD together with some of Stanshall's collaborations with Keith Moon. BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station which broadcasts a wide variety of chiefly spoken-word programmes including news, drama, comedy, science and history. ...

Sir Henry's final appearance was in a television commercial for Ruddles Real Ale (c. 1994), where he is portrayed by a cross-dressing Dawn French, presiding over a family banquet at a long table. Stanshall reprises the role of Hubert, reciting a poem loosely based on Edward Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat, at the end of which all the diners produce oars and row the table offscreen. Ruddles Brewery is a former English brewery now owned by Greene King, who still brews their beers under the Ruddles name. ... Transvestism is literally the practice of cross-dressing, wearing the clothing of the opposite sex, and transvestite literally refers to a person who cross-dresses. ... Dawn French (born 11 October 1957) is a British comedian and actress best known for being part of a comic duo with her comic partner Jennifer Saunders and for playing the lead role in The Vicar of Dibley as Geraldine Granger. ... Edward Lear, 1812-1888 Eagle Owl, Edward Lear, 1837 Another Edward Lear owl, in his more familiar style Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an artist, illustrator and writer known for his nonsensical poetry and his limericks, a form which he popularised. ...

There's Always More...

He collaborated on numerous projects including Robert Calvert's Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters, Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells where he is the Master of Ceremonies, breathily announcing the buildup of instruments in the finale of the first side of the album, appeared with Grimms and The Rutles, as well as occasionally working with The Alberts and The Temperance Seven. Robert Newton Calvert (9 March 1945 - 14 August 1988) was the lead singer, poet and frontman of Hawkwind intermittently from 1972-1979, who went on to a less successful but intriguing separate career. ... Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters was a 1974 satirical concept album by the erstwhile frontman of acid-rock band Hawkwind, Robert Calvert. ... Michael Gordon Oldfield (born May 15, 1953 in Reading, England) is a multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, working a style that blends progressive rock, folk, ethnic or world music, classical music, electronic music and more recently dance. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... Grimms (1973–74) was a pub rock and poetry group, the band name formed by the initial letters of each members surname: Gorman, John born 4 January 1936, in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England. ... The Rutles are a parody of The Beatles, jointly created by Eric Idle and Neil Innes. ... This article lacks information on the importance of the subject matter. ... The Temperance Seven was a British band specializing in 1920s-style jazz music. ...

While living on the Searchlight, Stanshall composed and recorded Teddy Boys Don't Knit, and wrote and recorded Sir Henry at Rawlinson End. There, he also wrote and filmed the film of the same name for Tony Stratton-Smith's Charisma Records company. At the same time, he co-wrote with Steve Winwood the songs for Winwood's Arc of a Diver and wrote many of the songs he later used for Stinkfoot, the musical comedy he wrote with his second wife, Ki Longfellow-Stanshall. Tony Stratton-Smith (1933-1987) was an English music manager, entrepreneur, and founder of London based Charisma Records which he began in 1969. ... Charisma Records was a record label started by former journalist Tony Stratton-Smith in 1969. ... Arc of a Diver is the second solo album by blue-eyed soulster Steve Winwood. ... Musical theater (or theatre) is a form of theater combining music, songs, dance, and spoken dialogue. ... This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ...

After the Searchlight, the Stanshall family lived and worked on the Thekla, a Baltic Trader, which was sailed 732 nautical miles from the east coast of England to be moored in the Bristol docks. His wife, Ki, had bought the Thekla in Sunderland, and converted her into a floating theatre called The Old Profanity Showboat. The ship saw the debut of Stinkfoot. , The Wearmouth Bridge Sunderland (pronounced: , or ) is a city in North East England which was formerly a county borough, and is now part of the City of Sunderland in Tyne and Wear. ... // Finding and Converting a Ship into a Showboat The Old Profanity Showboat was a 1982 late night brainchild of Ki Longfellow-Stanshall, the wife of Vivian Stanshall, one of Englands national treasures. ...

Stanshall wrote 27 original songs for Stinkfoot, sharing some of the lyric writing with his wife. The show involved bizarre characters that Stanshall imagined living under a seaside pier. It proved a success, with people coming from all over Europe and even America to see it. It was revived in London some years later, but flopped.

Stanshall's instantly recognisable voice won him several commercial voice-overs, including a campaign for Cadbury's Mini Eggs which involved a reworking of the Bonzos' song Mister Slater's Parrot, under the title of Mister Cadbury's Parrot. Cadbury Schweppes plc is a confectionery and beverage company with its headquarters in Berkeley Square, London, United Kingdom. ...

He was married twice: in 1968 to fellow art student Monica Peiser (they had a son, Rupert, that year, and were divorced in 1975); and on 9 September 1980, to novelist Pamela "Ki" Longfellow. They had a daughter, Silky, born on 16 August 1979, named after a racehorse called Silky Sullivan, her mother's childhood favourite. (Stanshall was seriously considering Dorothy. "Just think," he said, "We could call her Dot!") His marriage was celebrated in the song, Bewildebeeste, as was Silky's birth in The Tube, on his second solo album Teddy Boys Don't Knit (1981). —Ted M. Tillson, Los Angeles, 1958 // Silky Sullivan was a racehorse Silky Sullivan, an American thoroughbred race horse, was the come-from-behind runner of come-from-behind runners, the closer of closers. ... The Tube may refer to: The London Underground Television generally The Tube (London Underground TV series), an ITV/Sky programme featuring the work of staff on the London Underground The Tube (TV series), a former Channel 4 (UK) music programme The Tube (TV channel), US music video channel The Port...

In 1989, his short interview with John Wesley Harding was released on Harding's God Made Me Do It: the Christmas EP. John Wesley Harding (b. ...

In 1991, Stanshall made a 15-minute autobiographical piece called Vivian Stanshall: The Early Years, aka Crank, for BBC2's The Late Show, in which he confessed to having been terrified of his father, who had always disapproved of him. This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

A later programme for BBC Radio 4, Vivian Stanshall: Essex Teenager to Renaissance Man (1994) included an interview with his mother in which she insisted that his father had loved him, but Stanshall was mortified that his father had never shown it, not even on his deathbed. BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station which broadcasts a wide variety of chiefly spoken-word programmes including news, drama, comedy, science and history. ... Year 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1994 Gregorian calendar). ...

Death

Stanshall was found dead on 6 March 1995, after a fire at his Muswell Hill (north London) flat; coincidentally, this was one hundred years to the day after the death of (the original) Sir Henry Rawlinson. Though Stanshall often smoked and drank in bed and even set fire to his long ginger beard, to the frequent concern of his friends, the coroner found that the fire was caused by faulty wiring near his bed. , Muswell Hill is a suburb of north London, mostly in the London Borough of Haringey It is situated 6. ... See Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baron Rawlinson for the British World War I general (the son of Henry Creswicke Rawlinson). ...

A one-hour television documentary, Vivian Stanshall: The Canyons of his Mind, was broadcast on BBC Four in June 2004. This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Quotes

• "I don't know what I want, but I want it NOW!" (Sir Henry at Rawlinson End)
• "If you are normal, I intend to be a freak for the rest of my life" (My Pink Half of the Drainpipe)
• "Do have an unusual day, won't you?" (Essex Teenager to Renaissance man)
• "Do you know what a palmist once said to me? She said: WILL YOU LET GO!" (Sir Henry at Rawlinson End.)
• "Gentlemen, I am a bulldog, and you will find my bark is worse!" (Sir Henry at Rawlinson End)
• "If I had all the money I've spent on drink — I'd spend it on drink." (Sir Henry at Rawlinson End)
• "You got a light, mac? No...but I've got a dark brown overcoat." (Big Shot)
• "That was inedible muck, and there wasn't not enough of it." (Sir Henry at Rawlinson End)
• "Why can't I be different and unusual...like everybody else?" (Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead)
• "Mercifully, he hit him with the soft end of the pistol." (Sir Henry)
• "Frankly, once I've eaten a thing, I don't expect to see it again." (Sir Henry)
• "I've never met a man I didn't mutilate." (Sir Henry)
• "It was a great party until someone found the hammer." (Bonzo days)
• "And, looking very relaxed, Adolf Hitler on vibes. Nice!" (Intro and the outro)
• "If you're going to say anything filthy, please speak clearly." (message on his answering machine)
• "I've been looking for that particular son of a bitch for seven years. I could have been a doctor, or an architect." (Bad Blood)
• "Five years ago I was a four-stone apology — today I am two separate gorillas." (Mr. Apollo)
• "Viv Stanshall? I didn't know that." (Icy Gull on NSC)
• "Vivian Stanshall, about three O'clock in the morning, Oxfordshire, 1973, goodnight..." (Tubular Bells: The original version of the Sailor's Hornpipe)

Hitler redirects here. ...

Solo Discography

• Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead (1974) (This is currently unavailable and there is an on-line petition circulating to get Warner Brothers to re-release it.)
• Sir Henry At Rawlinson End (1978)
• Teddy Boys Don't Knit (1981)
• Sir Henry at Ndidi's Kraal (1984)

Bibliography

• Sir Henry at Rawlinson End: And Other Spots. London: Eel Pie, 1980. ISBN 0-906008-21-2
• Ginger Geezer: The Life of Vivian Stanshall by Lucian Randall and Chris Welch. London: Fourth Estate, 2001. ISBN 1-84115-678-7 (hardback); 2002. ISBN 1-84115-679-5 (paperback)
• Stinkfoot: An English Comic Opera. Rotterdam: Sea Urchin, 2003. ISBN 90-75342-13-6, a celebration of Vivian and Ki's comic opera (publisher's page)

External links

• Ginger Geezer Official website
• SHARE - The Vivian Stanshall Appreciation Society & Archive
  • Interviews, articles and rare recordings.
• Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead: the whole album in MP3
• Online petition to Warner Brothers Records for a CD reissue of Men Opening Umbrellas Overhead
• Part One of BBC2's Obituary from 1995
• Rawlinson End
• Doo Dah Diaries
• http://www.digitalclassicsdvd.co.uk/ View Sir Henry Trailer
• BBC audio interviews
• Punchable Nun, tribute to Vivian and the Bonzos
• Obituary from The Independent, 7 March 1995, written by Chris Welch (co-author with Lucian Randall of the Stanshall biography Ginger Geezer)
• Kettering no. 1 (PDF): this fanzine of "elderly British comedy" has an article on 'If It's Wednesday It Must Be...' with Stanshall and Kenny Everett
• Find-a-Grave