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Post by ostler on Oct 12, 2008 19:29:58 GMT
Hi all, long time no speak.
There's a guy at my work whose surname is Rawlinson, so I asked him if he'd heard of the Bonzos. He hadn't, so I told him about Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, and he said that Sir Henry was some ancestor of his! I waited for him to say he was joking, but he told me his grandfather had looked into the family history and found this incredible chap called Sir Henry Rawlinson. He's either having me on (I know him quite well and could tell he was being serious) or has been seriously deluded by his grandfather!
Unless of course there really was a Sir Henry Rawlinson? If there was this thread is redundant and I'm an idiot.
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Post by Nancy on Oct 12, 2008 19:36:25 GMT
That's interesting, from what I can gather Vivian Stanshall didn't base the character on any one person it was just about that particular class of people. A strange coincidence though I wonder what he was like, would be funny to hear he was an alcoholic maniac like Sir Henry At Rawlinson End.
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Post by graytart on Oct 13, 2008 1:28:16 GMT
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Post by ostler on Oct 13, 2008 9:11:56 GMT
Apparently it was quite an accurate portrayal of his ancestor. He said he was his great great great grandfather, and was in the battle of the Somme. That sounds like the one on Wikipedia 1864 - 1925.
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Post by graytart on Oct 14, 2008 15:12:12 GMT
Like all great stereotypes, it has the ring of truth in it. I know they are many people who think that the movie of Sir Henry at Rawlinson End is almost unwatchable, but I really like it. (My current avatar is the Rawlinson family crest from that, and the motto is Omnes Blotto). I love the warm sepia and the fact that the dress of the characters is all over the map period-wise. It is ostensibly after WW2 but Vivian's character of Hubert is marvellously Victorian.
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Post by ostler on Oct 14, 2008 18:35:41 GMT
It's completely bonkers, basically.
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Post by graytart on Oct 14, 2008 19:34:33 GMT
However, there are actually several story threads that are historically explained and completely resolved amidst the madness.
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Post by ostler on Oct 15, 2008 7:41:48 GMT
Yeah but the whole concept is mental. It boggles the mind as to how people can think such madness up!
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Post by Nancy on Oct 15, 2008 11:07:42 GMT
The only thing I really hated about the film was that Viv didn't play Sir Henry, but I could see that the guy who did play him looked the part better, and Viv did suit the roles of Hubert and Humbert, the character Sir Henry is not the same without Viv's voice though. I was also a bit disappointed that the woman playing Aunt Florrie wasn't a bit older too, she's meant to be "in the twilight of her Autumn". They said in the documentary about Viv's life that by the premiere of the film Viv and the director had had so many arguments that Viv's wife at the time had to stop him from stabbing him. I had heard before that he had been sectioned for trying to stab someone but didn't think it was true, as usual the truth was far less interesting, he was never sectioned and was prevented from trying to stab the guy in the first place, he just thought about it.
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Post by graytart on Oct 15, 2008 14:58:36 GMT
Vivian of course was not happy with the film, but then again he always liked "works in progress" best ("now read on - dot dot dot").
Trevor Howard was a "name" actor whose participation probably helped with financing and promotion. Denise Coffey as Mrs. E is a delight; of course Vivian knew her from the Bonzos' days on Do Not Adjust Your Set. Vivian's music director Pete Moss apparently has a cameo as a barber - I'll have to check back on that. Nice little cameo by Vernon. I also don't really remember Simon Jones in it; he went on to play Arthur Dent in both the radio and tv versions of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
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