Film / News
Stephen Fry joins Slapstick’s Viv Stanshall tribute
The inescapable Stephen Fry – whose latest volume of autobiography, More Fool Me, is currently riding high in the bestseller list – has somehow found time to take part in the Slapstick Festival‘s tribute to the late, great Viv Stanshall. He joins Viv’s ex-Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah bandmates Neil Innes and Rodney Slater in the Ginger Geezer show at the Bristol Old Vic on January 25. Also taking part is Mike Livesley, performing his own show based on Viv’s masterpiece, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End.
Fry is a long-term admirer and former chum of one-time Bristol resident Stanshall, who lived aboard the Thekla (or the Old Profanity Showboat, as it was then known) for many years, and presented a Radio 2 programme about him in 2012. Explaining his decision to take part in the event, he released the following, typically flowery statement:
“Vivian Stanshall saved my life. Alone at school, his Mullard-valve-warming voice, his poetic expression, his majesty, madness, tone, dignity and verbal sloshings, sluicings and whooshings made me happier than I can ever say. His name should live long in legend and song. While I breathe, and while thousands of other worshippers at the shrine of this all too mortal immortal breathe, and pass on the news, then his great name, flaming beard and divinely honeyed larynx and language will never perish from the hearts and minds of humankind.”
Slapstick runs from January 22-25 2015. For more on the festival, see our feature here and the Slapstick web site. For more on the Ginger Geezer show and booking information, go here
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