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GREAT LIVES SERIES 20 - 3. VIVIAN STANSHALL (320kbs-m4a/63mb/27mins)
BBC Radio 4 broadcast: 4th May 2023
Musician and performer Neil Innes chooses the life of his Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band colleague, and friend, Vivian Stanshall.
Neil tells Matthew Parris about the moment he met Vivian Stanshall in London: he was wearing Billy Bunter trousers, a Victorian frock coat and horrible purple pince-nez glasses and carrying a euphonium. So began a friendship and a musical partnership that exploded into life with The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, culminating in tours and TV series.
Vivian's second wife, Ki Longfellow, joins the discussion to help explore the man behind the colourful public persona.
Producer: Toby Field
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2009.
NEIL INNES: DIP MY BRAIN IN JOY (320kbs-m4a/409mb/2hrs58mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 2nd, 9th & 16th December 2020
Diane Morgan celebrates the life and work of Neil Innes, the music and comedy legend of The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band & The Rutles. A towering talent, occasionally known as the 7th Python & regularly found with a duck on his head. His legacy of music and comedy is rich, inspiring and inspired.
Neil said of his work, "Shakespeare wrote comedies as well as dramas. I'm just like Shakespeare, except with better songs." His influence permeates modern comedy and his back catalogue is diverse and prolific. Neil wrote and performed anarchic rock with The Bonzos, he penned and performed pitch-perfect pastiches of the Beatles for The Rutles, he appeared in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Monty Python's Life of Brian and he is one of only two non-Pythons with a writing credit on Monty Python's Flying Circus – the other being Douglas Adams. He released over 20 albums including How Sweet To Be An Idiot, Innes Book of Records, and Recycled Vinyl Blues. And on top of being comedically and musically gifted, he was also a really nice man. A beautiful, kind, gentle soul. Considered, absurd, and delightful.
We're celebrating the life, work and absurdist tendencies in this three hour collage of scraps and archive. There are old interviews, performances and programmes, conversations with family, friends and fans including his wife of over fifty years Yvonne, Stephen Fry, Adrian Edmondson, Kevin Eldon, Rick Wakeman and Arthur Smith, bandmates Rodney Slater, Phil Jackson, Ken Thornton, and John Halsey (better known to Rutles fans as Barry Wom), TV producer Ian Keill, record producer Martin Lewis, studio engineer extraordinaire Steve James, musical arranger extraordinaire John Altman, and Pythons Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin.
Neil died on Sunday 29th December 2019. He was 75. At the time of his death, he was working on a new album, and a project called Radio Noir, part-audio memoir, part-experimental work of art, part- exploration of the human brain and you will hear some extracts and some unreleased songs throughout the programme – that have never been broadcast.
Produced for BBC Radio 4 Extra by Laura Grimshaw.
NEIL INNES: DIP MY BRAIN IN JOY - 1. BANGS, BELCHES, SMUT & SMOKE (320kbs-m4a/134mb/58mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 2nd December 2020
In Part One, Bangs, Belches, Smut & Smoke, we look at Neil's early life and his musical and artistic influences. And we go out on the road, and into the recording studio, with the group of absurd young men who came together by chance, to mutilate the trad jazz movement of the 1920s, to subvert the new wave of psychedelic pop and to nurture a quite deliberate misunderstanding of anarchy - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band.
NEIL INNES: DIP MY BRAIN IN JOY - 2. EGO WARRIOR (320kbs-m4a/137mb/60mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 9th December 2020
In Part Two, Ego Warrior, we open up the Innes Book of Records, follow Neil on his foray into Children's Television (after all, the Raggy Dolls are dolls like you and me), and we take a look at Neil's approach to songwriting, and his craft of setting beautiful stories to music.
NEIL INNES: DIP MY BRAIN IN JOY - 3. OUCH! (320kbs-m4a/137mb/60mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 16th December 2020
In Part Three, Ouch!, we take a look at Neil's work with the Monty Python team on television, film and record, his work with Eric Idle on Rutland Weekend Television and The Rutles, and how the fictional outfit with a "legend that would last a lifetime" became a living, breathing, and touring band with adoring fans.
INNES OWN WORLD (320kbs-m4a/256mb/1hr52mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 24th January to 14th February 2020
Famed for The Rutles and The Bonzo Dog Band, Neil Innes ruminates wryly on the nature of civilisation.
Script Editor: John Dowie
Producer: Claire Jones
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2003.
INNES OWN WORLD - 1. EPISODE 1 (320kbs-m4a/64mb/28mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 24th January 2020
An opportunity to climb inside Neil Innes's head to find songs, atmospheric musings and some very irritating commercial breaks.
INNES OWN WORLD - 2. EPISODE 2 (320kbs-m4a/64mb/28mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 31st January 2020
A radio programme that takes you inside Neil Innes's head and doesn't let you out for half an hour.
Featuring "The Breakfast Things", Neil's own version of The Today Programme, broadcast from his kitchen table.
INNES OWN WORLD - 3. EPISODE 3 (320kbs-m4a/65mb/28mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 7th February 2020
Neil Innes shares some breakfast dramas and memories of touring the USA with the Bonzo Dog Band.
The Radio Show that spits the Gargle of Existence into the Bathroom Sink of Being and introduces the Man of Substance to the Woman of Intuition.
INNES OWN WORLD - 4. EPISODE 4 (320kbs-m4a/65mb/28mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 14th February 2020
Neil Innes invites you to join him inside his own mind for half an hour.
There are some stories of working with Monty Python, jingles for products you never thought you needed and a modest little song called Isn't It Great Being A Star?
It's the only show that promises to pluck the eyebrows of intelligence with the sugar tongs of fact.