THE FINAL PART OF VIVIAN STANSHALL’S SURREAL COMIC MASTERPIECE

In 1978, Charisma Records released the ‘Sir Henry At Rawlinson End’ album, a forty-minute introduction to the eccentric custodian of the crumbling British country estate, which incorporated characters & music from the various episodes of the Sir Henry saga, originally broadcast on the BBC’s John Peel show from October 1975 up until 1991. The BBC regular re-broadcast Sir Henry even today.

In 1980, Sir Henry was also unleashed on the public as a film, starring the great Trevor Howard & was also issued as book published by Eel Pie Publishing, owned at the time by The Who’s Pete Townshend.

The 1990’s found Sir Henry used as the concept for a now legendary series of Ruddles Beer adverts that cemented Rawlinson’s End in the National consciousness.

In the years just before his untimely death in 1995, Vivian intended to generate a new album based around the content of three of the final episodes broadcast by John Peel on the BBC; ‘Crackpot At The End Of The Rainbow’ recorded in February 1988, ‘The Eating At Rawlinson End’, from August 1988 & ‘The Thing At Rawlinson End’, from April 1991. For decades it has been rumoured that a new Sir Henry album would be released & now finally Madfish / Snapper Music in collaboration with the Stanshall Family have made that rumour a reality.

Using all the remaining tapes from Vivian’s archive, Stanshall expert & performance artist Michael Livesley has manged to put back together the intended release, a process that he has described as similar to “putting back together a smashed vase”. The results are a revelation with the final album now a double LP containing some of Vivian’s finest work. Fans of Sir Henry, Old Scrotum, Mrs E & the various bizarre & evocative characters that inhabit the musty ‘Rawlinson’s End’ will be thrilled at the imagined adventures that await them.