An Evening Inside the Head of Vivian Stanshall

Viv Stanshall, with a ship adrift on a sea of shaving cream atop his head

Vivian Stanshall: comedian, musician, cult figure, former frontman for the infamous 1960s surrealist pop group The Bonzo Dog (Doo-Dah) Band — inspiration to the future Monty Python troupe while both groups were together on a British kids show, famous for their appearance in The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour film, frequent openers for the likes of Cream in their heyday — is generally underappreciated (even criminally so) in the US, aside from a small but ardent following. Unlike his fellow Bonzos alum Neil Innes, who has achieved some measure of fame for his (large) part in The Rutles films and records, Stanshall gets overlooked in favor of more homegrown cult weirdos, like Msrs. Zappa and Beefheart. I feel as though Stanshall’s rather tangible eccentricity deserves to let its fierce light shine out through those in my film circle! And so, True Believers, I give you…

Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (1980): This is the film of the record of the radio show that made Stanshall famous among the right sort of people in the UK. It seems that in the early 1970s, when hipster DJ John Peel of the BBC wanted to take vacations, he’d ring up Viv, who would play records, but also present installments of a fictitiously long-running soap opera called Sir Henry at Rawlinson End. The (central) joke of these stories was the deployment of the story so far: hopelessly byzantine, with expressionistically interconnected characters and patently ridiculous circumstances. These periodic broadcasts proved so popular that they were followed by a Stanshall record of the same title, with two solid sides of narration that both did and didn’t quite synch up with the beloved radio plays. As such things sometimes do, this turned into an offer for a film, and with Stanshall behind the typewriter, the film shambled onto the unsuspecting screen. Shot in a sort of muddy sepia black and white, the story concerns the titular Sir Henry Rawlinson (Trevor Howard), the last of the old guard, bigot prince of rotting Rawlinson End, and the family, servants and townsfolk that make up his world. It’s rapidfire, stream of conscious humor often threatens to upend itself and like its audio forerunners, piles on layer after layer of detail and eccentricity into its elaborate presentation. Long available only on poor videocassette prints, the British have recently been treated to a pristine new print on DVD, which I now share with you.

Here’s a review of the film from TVCream’s Top 100 films list:

Practically everything the genteelly unhinged Vivian Stanshall did lends itself to untold repeated scrutiny – we only just noticed the other day how his early ’90s Ruddles Real Ale adverts contain a bizarre homage to Purple Haze – and nothing of his is more dense and packed with detail than the decrepit pile and inhabitants of Rawlinson End. Translated from the LP monologues and Peel Sessions, but crucially not losing the bite of the original riotous routines, the sepia-tinted world of musty armour, itinerant staff and gin-senile gentry is there in all its incontinent majesty, with Trevor Howard topping off a fine cast as lord of the manor. The plot, such as it is, involves Patrick Magee’s attempted exorcism of the trouserless ghost of Henry’s invisible toy dog-walking brother (played by Stanshall), but that’s almost a formality amongst the dovetailing vignettes of Harry Fowler’s spying spiv, Denise Coffey’s tapeworm advice, Sir H’s personal PoW camp, etc. etc. If it has a failing, it’s that there’s too much going on – as soon as one gag has unfolded, it’s superceded by another one as the script gets seemingly bored with itself. Not that the audience is in danger of following suit – it takes an effort to keep up with the pace of invention. But it’s well worth it. Stanshall’s wistful theme song, “The Cracks Are Showing,” is a corker, too.

For the still unsold, I’ve included also a Youtube copy of the trailer (which I showed after Fabulous Stains last time):

 

to be preceded by

“One Man’s Week: Vivian Stanshall” (9 April 1975): This short film, originally shot for BBC2, spends time with the erratic Mr. Stanshall, who takes us through the high points of a week of his life some five years before the Sir Henry movie. Viv shows us his pets, gets interviewed by the BBC, goes shopping for old records, and finally ends up in a recording studio in France with his band, biG Grunt. This is a fine introduction to the man for the beginner, and a rare intimate treat for the experienced. It’s also likely I’ll show Viv’s interview on the teen-oriented talkshow Friday Night, Saturday Morning, where he’s promoting Sir Henry, and it seems the host’s only research has been the “One Week” broadcast.

I do hope you’ll join me.