"It is almost three years since Madge and Bobby Rawlinson pulled up roots and were arrested by the parks department; the mandrake screamed..."
And with these words, the Rawlinson saga, and ultimately, Sir Henry At Rawlinson End was introduced to a delighted listening public, since accustomed to Vivian Stanshall's wilfully unrestrained flights of fancy. The only question was: what would he come up with next?
Originally featured on the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's final, contractual obligation LP, 1972's 'Let's Make Up And Be Friendly', the Rawlinson monologues emerged from the troubled frontman's fascination with the 'Women's Own' stories he'd read in dentists' waiting rooms, affording tantalising glimpses into the lives of "trampolining acupuncturists".
By 1975 the Rawlinson saga had transformed into a surreal soap, irregularly aired on that other national treasure, the late John Peel's BBC Radio 1 programme. "One of his better thoughts would blow my brains out," mused Peel.
Focusing on the ramshackle Rawlinson retreat in rural England, populated with eccentrics like Sir Henry, Lady Florrie, and Old Scrotum (the "Wrinkled Retainer"), and featuring its own "small but daunting" prisoner-of-war camp on the grounds, this frazzled satire on a bucolic colonial England, Vivian's sobriety permitting, continued to be broadcast for the next 16 years, and became one of the Ginger Geezer's most beloved legacies.
In 1980, Charisma Records boss Tony Stratton Smith decided to furnish his label with a film wing, adapting Stanshall's album 'Sir Henry At Rawlinson End' as his inaugural feature. Young filmmaker Steve Roberts was hired as director and Trevor Howard chosen to play Sir Henry (Vivian played Henry's brother Hubert).
As chronicled in Lucian Randall and Chris Welch's exemplary biography of Stanshall, Viv's alcoholism became so out of control during filming that he was banished, boozeless, to an island in a lake near Knebworth House, Hertfordshire, the main shooting location.
Unaware he was being spied on throughout, the crew soon discovered Stanshall had sewn vodka bottles into his coat, and, once on the island, ripped them out of the hems. "That boy needs looking after and whipping into shape" growled Howard, no tee-totaller himself. Shot in 19 days for £100,000 in black and white ("a tribute to Ealing," says Roberts), the film emerged in sepia, due to an error at the processing lab. It only adds to the curious flavour.
The (at first-glance) near-incoherent, stream-of-consciousness plot ("a film of allusions, references and mockeries," says Roberts) is almost entirely secondary to a series of Dada-ist set-pieces, blessed with Stanshall's mellifluous narration and ukelele soundtrack.
Presiding over his revolting ancestral pile, filled with mechanical bulldogs, rotten fruit and excrement, retired general and bigot Sir Henry ("I never met a man I didn't mutilate") has taken to riding a unicycle down the road in a tutu and minstrel blackface - the better to appear incognito. He also keeps two "pet prisoners of war" on the estate grounds, who patiently indulge his fantasies that it's still World War Two.
Clearly, his brother Hubert's ghost, whose trouserless shade haunts the house, pulling a toy dog behind him, has driven him insane. Alas, Sir Henry had accidentally mistaken Hubert for a duck and shot him while he was fleeing the scene of an adulterous tryst with one "Rosie One-Tooth". Now Sir Henry wants to exorcise him. All Hubert wants is a pair of trousers.
"What a project that was!" says Stanshall's former Bonzo bandmate Neil Innes. "Written by a drunk, directed by a drunk, financed by a drunk, starred a drunk, what hope was there?" But this isn't the underlying problem with Sir Henry At Rawlinson End. The real issue is whether one can successfully transpose an audio conceit into film with any degree of success; here, the resounding answer, unfortunately, is no you can't.
'The Goon Show' and (arguably) 'The HitchHiker's Guide To The Galaxy' produced equally underwhelming spectacles in making the transition from radio to the screen. As Hubert ironically notes in the film, "I don't like stories without pictures I can understand... I get sleepy; I like surprises." Nevertheless, there's some diverting stuff here, where Monty Python meets Buñuel via Evelyn Waugh and Tristram Shandy: a game of snooker played indoors on horseback; Hubert fishing for hairdressers. Certainly 'Little Britain', and Tom Baker's attendant monologues in particular, owe it a due.
Yet Viv ended up hating it. As he complained in 'The Face', "The record is certainly flawed but it does have a rhythmic sense to it which the film lacks. When I saw the rough cut, thank God I was drunk, because otherwise I would have been armed and there would have been bloody wounds - and more." As Roberts confessed later, the film was just too reliant on verbal wordplay to work.
But, ah, what words! Try this for size: "Dawn tripping foul-mouthed through the severed limbs and snoozing boozers, Old Scrotum, the wrinkled retainer staggers for a hair of the dog that last night bit him and to wash away the taste of Mrs E, while the one-time prisoners awoke free and fresh, dropping their shackles like an orchestra of falling teeth."
There are also some immensely quotable one-liners, mostly uttered by the magnificent Howard, who wisely plays it totally straight throughout. "I don't know what I want, but I want it now!" Or, "Fetch me my antlers - no, not those antlers - the ones I use to deface 'Reader's Digest!'" And Florrie's (Reid) immortal exclamation during a round of cards, "My dear Henry, if dirty fingers were trumps, what a splendid hand you'd have!"
Ultimately, the film seems guaranteed to disappoint almost everybody; fans of the original radio show and LP and casual viewers alike. Yet if just one, as yet uninitiated viewer, stumbles upon it and takes a liking to it, in turn leading them into Stanshall's rich back catalogue, it will all have been worth it.
And with these words, the Rawlinson saga, and ultimately, Sir Henry At Rawlinson End was introduced to a delighted listening public, since accustomed to Vivian Stanshall's wilfully unrestrained flights of fancy. The only question was: what would he come up with next?
Originally featured on the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's final, contractual obligation LP, 1972's 'Let's Make Up And Be Friendly', the Rawlinson monologues emerged from the troubled frontman's fascination with the 'Women's Own' stories he'd read in dentists' waiting rooms, affording tantalising glimpses into the lives of "trampolining acupuncturists".
By 1975 the Rawlinson saga had transformed into a surreal soap, irregularly aired on that other national treasure, the late John Peel's BBC Radio 1 programme. "One of his better thoughts would blow my brains out," mused Peel.
Focusing on the ramshackle Rawlinson retreat in rural England, populated with eccentrics like Sir Henry, Lady Florrie, and Old Scrotum (the "Wrinkled Retainer"), and featuring its own "small but daunting" prisoner-of-war camp on the grounds, this frazzled satire on a bucolic colonial England, Vivian's sobriety permitting, continued to be broadcast for the next 16 years, and became one of the Ginger Geezer's most beloved legacies.
In 1980, Charisma Records boss Tony Stratton Smith decided to furnish his label with a film wing, adapting Stanshall's album 'Sir Henry At Rawlinson End' as his inaugural feature. Young filmmaker Steve Roberts was hired as director and Trevor Howard chosen to play Sir Henry (Vivian played Henry's brother Hubert).
As chronicled in Lucian Randall and Chris Welch's exemplary biography of Stanshall, Viv's alcoholism became so out of control during filming that he was banished, boozeless, to an island in a lake near Knebworth House, Hertfordshire, the main shooting location.
Unaware he was being spied on throughout, the crew soon discovered Stanshall had sewn vodka bottles into his coat, and, once on the island, ripped them out of the hems. "That boy needs looking after and whipping into shape" growled Howard, no tee-totaller himself. Shot in 19 days for £100,000 in black and white ("a tribute to Ealing," says Roberts), the film emerged in sepia, due to an error at the processing lab. It only adds to the curious flavour.
The (at first-glance) near-incoherent, stream-of-consciousness plot ("a film of allusions, references and mockeries," says Roberts) is almost entirely secondary to a series of Dada-ist set-pieces, blessed with Stanshall's mellifluous narration and ukelele soundtrack.
Presiding over his revolting ancestral pile, filled with mechanical bulldogs, rotten fruit and excrement, retired general and bigot Sir Henry ("I never met a man I didn't mutilate") has taken to riding a unicycle down the road in a tutu and minstrel blackface - the better to appear incognito. He also keeps two "pet prisoners of war" on the estate grounds, who patiently indulge his fantasies that it's still World War Two.
Clearly, his brother Hubert's ghost, whose trouserless shade haunts the house, pulling a toy dog behind him, has driven him insane. Alas, Sir Henry had accidentally mistaken Hubert for a duck and shot him while he was fleeing the scene of an adulterous tryst with one "Rosie One-Tooth". Now Sir Henry wants to exorcise him. All Hubert wants is a pair of trousers.
"What a project that was!" says Stanshall's former Bonzo bandmate Neil Innes. "Written by a drunk, directed by a drunk, financed by a drunk, starred a drunk, what hope was there?" But this isn't the underlying problem with Sir Henry At Rawlinson End. The real issue is whether one can successfully transpose an audio conceit into film with any degree of success; here, the resounding answer, unfortunately, is no you can't.
'The Goon Show' and (arguably) 'The HitchHiker's Guide To The Galaxy' produced equally underwhelming spectacles in making the transition from radio to the screen. As Hubert ironically notes in the film, "I don't like stories without pictures I can understand... I get sleepy; I like surprises." Nevertheless, there's some diverting stuff here, where Monty Python meets Buñuel via Evelyn Waugh and Tristram Shandy: a game of snooker played indoors on horseback; Hubert fishing for hairdressers. Certainly 'Little Britain', and Tom Baker's attendant monologues in particular, owe it a due.
Yet Viv ended up hating it. As he complained in 'The Face', "The record is certainly flawed but it does have a rhythmic sense to it which the film lacks. When I saw the rough cut, thank God I was drunk, because otherwise I would have been armed and there would have been bloody wounds - and more." As Roberts confessed later, the film was just too reliant on verbal wordplay to work.
But, ah, what words! Try this for size: "Dawn tripping foul-mouthed through the severed limbs and snoozing boozers, Old Scrotum, the wrinkled retainer staggers for a hair of the dog that last night bit him and to wash away the taste of Mrs E, while the one-time prisoners awoke free and fresh, dropping their shackles like an orchestra of falling teeth."
There are also some immensely quotable one-liners, mostly uttered by the magnificent Howard, who wisely plays it totally straight throughout. "I don't know what I want, but I want it now!" Or, "Fetch me my antlers - no, not those antlers - the ones I use to deface 'Reader's Digest!'" And Florrie's (Reid) immortal exclamation during a round of cards, "My dear Henry, if dirty fingers were trumps, what a splendid hand you'd have!"
Ultimately, the film seems guaranteed to disappoint almost everybody; fans of the original radio show and LP and casual viewers alike. Yet if just one, as yet uninitiated viewer, stumbles upon it and takes a liking to it, in turn leading them into Stanshall's rich back catalogue, it will all have been worth it.
