PREVIEW: Three Bonzos And A Piano @ The Georgian Theatre
By Mark Corcoran-Lettice on October 11, 2012 in Stage
“A highlight? Well, the only highlight I can think of right now are these eleven gigs we did after we split in 1969. We’d got to a point where we just thought enough was enough – then, it was all about how to develop your act and having our label tell us ‘you’ve got to have another Urban Spaceman!’ – so at Christmas 1969 we’d made the unanimous decision that we were going to finish. Viv Stanshall then had to ring us up rather sheepishly at New Year to say, ‘sorry guys, but we’ve got eleven booked gigs left to do!’ But we did the gigs with no worries about the act or where to take it, and we just went out, performed, and kept the money!”
Confused? Well reader, you’re not the first one to be confounded by these most remarkable of eccentrics over the years. Since budding art students Vivian Stanshall and Rodney Slater first bonded and christened their act The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band in 1962, the group and its constituent members have been baffling and delighting with their anarchic blend of psychedelic whimsy, music hall pastiche, trad jazz chops and comic inventiveness. With members Roger Ruskin-Spear, Rodney Slater and Sam Spoons keeping the spirit alive as Three Bonzos And A Piano, I asked Roger Ruskin-Spear to try and make at least a little sense of it all…
Thankfully, Roger agrees to at least explain how this latest iteration of the Bonzos came to be. “We had our big Bonzo reunion in 2006 – how time passes! – when some chap wanted to see the Bonzo Dog Band play live, so he ended up organising a tour for us. We had that tour, and it was fun but rather expensive to mount as we had lots of guests and sessionists, and when the reunion ended in 2008 we decided we wanted to carry on as we knew the audience was there now. Neil Innes didn’t want to do it anymore, but there’s three of us still standing, so the thought was let’s see what happens when it’s just us. The three of us got together with David Glasson, and that’s the current group really, it’s just the best way of taking the Bonzo reunion forwards.”
As the conversation goes on, Roger also notes that one of the main priorities for keeping the Bonzo reunion going live is to display the visual flair the band possessed that has become lost with time. “The Bonzos was always a very visual thing, and the visual aspect of the show was something we spent a lot of time on, but for people who’ve grown up just knowing the Bonzos through the records and such, that’s obviously been lost on them. So one of the main aspects of the show is that you can come and see all the old Bonzos numbers live with all the rubbish thrown in!”
Expanding on the visuals and interactions of the Three Bonzos And A Piano shows, Roger says “We’ve always tried to find interesting visuals for it, so we’ve rebuilt the robots that we used to have on stage. There’s some large props we like to use, but a lot of it is relying on the audience. On the road they tend to know the words better than we do! We’ve also done this thing of running a quiz based on the track Shirt, where we interviewed people about shirts and put their answers at the start of the song. It’s a puzzle sometimes for people who’ve never seen the Bonzos before, but it seems to be 50/50 old and new fans, so it usually works fine.”
But considering the dedication of the more loyal Bonzo fans, Roger perhaps needn’t worry –few acts could claim to have archives as immersive and detailed as the Doo Dah Diaries maintained by David Christie –“very, very dedicated!” as Roger notes. “We’ve always been a small, underground act and we’re never going to be famous, but the people who liked us then have passed it down to this new generation. There’s quite a few fans in America now, and we’re talking about how we could bring Three Bonzos And A Piano to Japan as well.”
As our conversation wraps up, Roger explains that part of the impetus behind the first reformation and the subsequent Three Bonzos project was “to keep the spirit of the eleven 1970 gigs alive – no stress, no worries, just have some fun with it.” Fifty years on, and they’re still a defiantly silly, entertaining group.
Three Bonzos And A Piano appear at Stockton’s Georgian Theatre on Friday 19 October.
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With Three Bonzos & A Piano coming to The Georgian Theatre (@georgian_stcktn), we chatted to Roger Ruskin-Spear | http://t.co/zagVxx3A
End of an era. Last interview I arranged for Three #Bonzos http://t.co/sIs5p8vQ Also gets @DooDahDiaries a mention. Good, innit?!
End of an era. Last interview I arranged for Three #Bonzos http://t.co/sIs5p8vQ Also gets @DooDahDiaries a mention. Good, innit?!
With Three Bonzos & A Piano coming to The Georgian Theatre (@georgian_stcktn), we chatted to Roger Ruskin-Spear | http://t.co/zagVxx3A
With Three Bonzos & A Piano coming to The Georgian Theatre (@georgian_stcktn), we chatted to Roger Ruskin-Spear | http://t.co/zagVxx3A
With Three Bonzos & A Piano coming to The Georgian Theatre (@georgian_stcktn), we chatted to Roger Ruskin-Spear | http://t.co/zagVxx3A
End of an era. Last interview I arranged for Three #Bonzos http://t.co/sIs5p8vQ Also gets @DooDahDiaries a mention. Good, innit?!
3 Bonzos & A Piano coming to The Georgian Theatre (@georgian_stcktn), we chatted to Roger Ruskin-Spear | http://t.co/GXN13hIz > Seat booked
3 Bonzos & A Piano coming to The Georgian Theatre (@georgian_stcktn), we chatted to Roger Ruskin-Spear | http://t.co/GXN13hIz > Seat booked