Trevor Howard/Viv Stanshall - Sir Henry at Rawlinson End [DVD]

As complex as the mind of its creator, Vivian Stanshall, the plot of `Sir Henry at Rawlinson End' revolves around attempts to exorcise of the ghost of Humbert, the brother of Sir Henry (Trevor Howard). Humbert was accidentally killed in a drunken duck-shooting incident whilst escaping from an illicit tryst. Amongst the eccentric family members, mad friends and grudgingly loyal servants involved are the eternally knitting Aunt Florrie, the tapeworm-obsessed Mrs. E, Lady Phillipa of Staines, who enjoys the odd `small' sherry and the ever-present Old Scrotum, Sir Henry's d retainer. Adding to the poetic shambles are the hess Germans, long post-war, who populate the fearsome PoW camp that Sir Henry set up in the gardens of his estate, and his younger brother Hubert who fishes for hairdressers in a pond. Furnished with a stuffed mechanical bulldog, a champion billiard-playing horse and a marriage bed cruelly divided by sandbags and barbed wire, Rawlinson End is an endlessly mad, hilarious outpost of an England as it could have been... Review ------ It wouldn't be a million miles wide of the mark to call 'Sir Henry at Rawlinson End' a missing link between Monty Python and 'Withnail & I', but as the brainchild of Vivian Stanshall - pack leader of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band - it has a place in the pantheon of sophisticated English silliness all of its own. --Time Out

An acquired taste, but one well worth acquiring. --The Guardian Guide

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll jab your eyes with fingers still trembling from the trauma of being made a child again. You'll jab your eyes just to check you've just seen what you think you've seen.... Sir Henry is a film to be experienced as closely and seriously and often as possible, a work of art that should sink under the skin and into the s and do its good work like s and (Captain Beefheart's) Trout Replica. I can't recommend it {Sir Henry} highly enough so I won't even start. It's out there if you want it. And in here (tap skull and chest) whether you want it or not, Englander pig dog. A talking picture. And what could be more wonderful than that? --Plan B Magazine An acquired taste, but one well worth acquiring. --The Guardian Guide You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll jab your eyes with fingers still trembling from the trauma of being made a child again. You'll jab your eyes just to check you've just seen what you think you've seen.... Sir Henry is a film to be experienced as closely and seriously and often as possible, a work of art that should sink under the skin and into the s and do its good work like s and (Captain Beefheart's) Trout Replica. I can't recommend it {Sir Henry} highly enough so I won't even start. It's out there if you want it. And in here (tap skull and chest) whether you want it or not, Englander pig dog. A talking picture. And what could be more wonderful than that? --Plan B Magazine P.when('A').execute(function(A) { A.on('a:expander:toggle_description:toggle:collapse', function(data) { window.scroll(0, data.expander.$expander[0].offsetTop-100); }); }); From the Contributor -------------------- The concept of Sir Henry at Rawlinson End started life as the brain child of Vivian Stanshall, founder member of avante garde 60s group, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. BBC DJ John Peel serialised Sir Henry on radio throughout 1977, from that, Charisma Films and Records Chairman Tony Stratton-Smith recorded an album of Sir Henry which met with great critical accl. Sir Henry was adapted for the stage, where throughout the late 1970s it was performed to sold-out theatres up and down the country. At this point, Charisma realised Sir Henry had a further step to make and set about making plans for a feature film. Trevor Howard (Brief Encounter) expressed an interest in the idea and, from reading the script, virtually went straight to the location to start shooting. Enlisting the aid of Steve Roberts who directed and co-wrote the screenplay, Charisma produced what has been accled as `a true masterpiece in the art of the cinema'. See more ( javascript:void(0) )

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