Music Arcades: Vivian Stanshall: Sir Henry at Rawlinson End

If you're going to get something badly wrong, I recommend being corrected swiftly, abruptly, and ideally by your own hand. Happily the chips have fallen in such a way as to help me correct my ungracious comments with which I signed off three days ago, about the Bonzos being effete Little Englanders, and Viv Stanshall being a UKIP supporter. The very opening lines of this CD give the lie to those hasty and misguided slights:

English as tuppence, changing yet changeless as canal water, nestling in green nowhere, armoured and effete, bold flag-bearer, lotus-fed Miss Havershambling oximath and eremite, feudal-still reactionary Rawlinson End.

The whole is evidently a caustic satire on a set of effete Little Englanders (see full transcript). You get from this little glimpse of the absurdist language that drips out of Viv Stanshall, and which connects with some of the work of his fan, Stephen Fry.

I think I remember reading somewhere that some of Stanshall's last work was part-financed by Fry and Peter Gabriel — I thought it might have been the film of Sir Henry…, but that was 1980, and I don't imagine the 23-year-old Stephen Fry would have had enough money to finance films.

Spoken word albums always face the challenge of Why would you listen to this more than three times? Firstly, the language on Sir Henry… is sufficiently dense to require a few listenings to absorb it all. Secondly, the voicings of the characters are sufficiently mad for some to want to listen to them enough to be able to imitate them in cult jokes. The Boy, who is no stranger to hearing some odd voices, almost jumped out of his skin a couple of times while this was on.