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| Sir Henry at Rawlinson End | 
 enlarge | Artist: Vivian Stanshall
Label: Virgin Chattering
Category: Music
List Price: £6.99
Buy New: £3.39
You Save: £3.60 (52%)
New (28) from £3.39
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 4144
Format: Soundtrack
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
UPC: 724384034320
EAN: 0724384034320
ASIN: B0000082FB
Release Date: May 8, 1995
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW PRODUCT Factory Sealed - Ships via Airmail from the USA - Fast Average 4 to 8 workdays delivery time - Excellent customer service - Buy with confidence!
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| Tracks:
| • | Aunt Florries' Waltz | | • | Interlewd | | • | Wheelbarrow | | • | Socks | | • | Rub | | • | Nice 'N' Tidy | | • | Pigs 'Ere Purse | | • | 6\8 Hoodoo | | • | Smeeton | | • | Fool & Bladder | | • | Endroar | | • | Junglebunny | | • | Beasht Inshide | | • | Rawlinson & Maynards | | • | Papadumb |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
The Road To Unreason... July 31, 2008
Not as some have said, the original version of 'Sir Henry at Rawlinson End' but by far and away the most concise. It's all you really wanted to know about Henry Rawlinson in an easy to swallow, beautifully performed hour.
And I've enjoyed this hour for what must amount to weeks in repeated plays. Even now, a word or phrase can suddenly shine out as a meaning or reference becomes clear. The narrative and songs are examples of Vivian at his very best and it comes as no surprise that this album continues to enthrall listeners decades after it's first release.
It's actually a condensed version or fragment of a much bigger series of recorded works which were performed in an equally erudite and mellifluous fashion for radio. Not that this album contains any part of the actual radio transmissions themselves.
One day perhaps, with enough encoragement, the BBC may release the original recordings. Until then the avid listener can only imagine the content of episodes such as 'Spades, Balls and Sausage Trees', 'Cabbage Looking In Mufti', 'Crackpot At The End Of The Rainbow' and 'The Road To Unreason'.
Utterly unique and extraordinary, this single hour of Stanshall opens up a world of astonishing beauty and invention like no other.
Frightening but exquisite April 29, 2008
I recently bought this album having read about Stanshall's friendship with Keith Moon. At first listen it is quite bizarre, but the exquisite rhythm of the prose rings through and with some great comic moments you're immediately tempted to listen again.
I can understand the other reviews suggesting that this album grows on you; I've listened to nothing else for some time. Stanshall's careful delivery, comic voices and incredible throw-away one liners mean that there is something new to discover every time.
In short, a masterpiece and highly undervalued both in pecuniary and cultural terms!
Awkward beasts, winkles October 8, 2006
21 out of 21 found this review helpful
Born out of short interludes in Bonzo Dog albums and Peel Show contributions in the late Seventies, this recording contains, quite possibly, the most entertaining 40 minutes you are ever likely to enjoy. The scene is set in the faded grandeur of dust-shrouded aristocratic manor Rawlinson End where the terrifying Sir Henry and a cast of larger than life grotesques, of League of Gentlemen proportions, go about their daily excursions under Stanshall's relentless microscope.
His use of language is extraordinary, and he can move from the bawdily asinine (the downtrodden manservant is called Scrotum: the wrinkled retainer) to space-cadet surreal in the course of a single sentence.
The piece is crammed to the gills with throwaway one-liners... for example when some of the characters are playing cards, one remarks to Sir Henry "why, if filthy fingers were trumps, what a marvellous hand you'd have."
All is narrated with his plummy, rounded, and hugely expressive voice morphing wonderfully into each perfectly realised character. The scenes are intersperced with musical interludes, which the idiosyncratic but canny Stanshall made timelessly gauche (echoes of the Bonzo's here).
Viv Stanshall's exquisitely sharp, savage and witty descriptions paint some of the most vivid and side splittingly laugh out loud funny scenes this writer has ever heard. The rich density of the descriptions and narrative will bring the listener back time and again to find nuances and meanings that elude first listens. An undeniable work of genius from the finest hour of this sadly missed English eccentric ... Indispensible.
Vivian Stanshall's poetic & witty masterpiece May 19, 2006
24 out of 25 found this review helpful
This is Vivian Stanshall's crowning achievement - a poetic and brilliantly witty epic tale delivered in Viv's wonderful rich baritone voice with musical interludes. It features the decadent eccentric aristocrat, Sir Henry Rawlinson, along with his grotesque relatives and acquaintances inhabiting Rawlinson End, a stately pile "nestling in green nowhere" in the English countryside.
John Peel believed that Viv Stanshall was "on his day,the funniest man in Britain" and along with producer John Walters encouraged Viv to develop the Sir Henry character on his Radio 1 show which led to this marvellous album.
Viv Stanshall's influences included Marcel Duchamp, Dada and Oscar Wilde and all are evident on this bizarre, hilarious and literate masterpiece.
Sublime January 9, 2006
15 out of 16 found this review helpful
Does it get any better? If you like the Bonzos or Stanshall in general then this is a must. I dont think I have ever heard such exquisite wordplay, fine diction and off the wall humour in one place before.My only question - When is the film going to be available on DVD?
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