The third reunion

Neil Innes is an exceptionally kind human being and doesn’t realize that I am basically his stalker.

It’s 2006. The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band are having a reunion gig at the Astoria Theatre (sadly no longer with us). Viv Stanshall (also sadly no longer with us) has been dead for ten years and Neil has hit upon the idea of asking several acknowledged fans to fill in for Viv, who was the lead singer of the band.

The Bonzos have a history of splitting up and getting back together, in fact their post-break-up contractual obligation album of 1972 is called Let’s Make Up and Be Friendly. There have always been tensions in the band.

The third reunion show is in two halves – in the first the original band minus Viv will play the old jazz and novelty records they used to cover in the early days, and in the second the band plus myself, Stephen Fry, Paul Merton, Phill Jupitus and Bill Bailey will perform their more modern, more rocky, self-penned numbers.

Consequently I find myself in the front row of the circle with Stephen, Paul, Phill and Bill watching the first half run through. I’m mouthing every word of every song and I look along the line and see that we all are. We’re all über fans.

I get to hang out with the people I’ve idolized all my life: Neil, Legs Larry Smith, Sam Spoons, Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell, Rodney Slater, Roger Ruskin Spear. And none of them disappoint because not only am I hanging out with them, I’m performing with them – performing the songs they have imprinted on my psyche over the previous thirty-six years. This is a different level of fandom altogether.

The crowd are as pleased to be there as I am and it all goes very well. Though my favourite part of the show is backstage afterwards when the tannoy blares out: ‘Calling Mr Spoons – Mrs Spoons is at the stage door with several of the teaspoons.’

The show goes so well that they decide to take it out on tour. They ask us all if we will join in and carry on filling in for Viv. Myself and Phill immediately say yes. The others are too busy. Too busy to tour with the Bonzos? Perhaps they’re not über fans after all. Or perhaps they’re just more successful than we are.

But Phill and I have a blast. A lot of Phill’s comedy has a particularly cruel and vicious streak to it but I learn it’s just a protective shield against the many slings and arrows that come his way, and that underneath he’s a delightfully gentle soul. We share the Viv filling-in duties between us. I sing and I play kazoo, triangle, ukulele and the coconuts. I also get to play the trumpet in ‘Jazz Delicious Hot Disgusting Cold’. This is a track from the beloved Gorilla album, the track Rik and I put on the end of Guest House Paradiso, the track I want played at my funeral. It was made in a hurry when they’d run out of studio time. As a kind of Dadaist experiment they simply passed their instruments to the person on their left and set to on an up-tempo jazz instrumental. It’s about the triumph of enthusiasm over ability. So I’m supposed to sound like I’ve never played it before but that I’m playing with gusto, and, boy, do I succeed. It’s the instrument Viv played on the track and I feel like I’m channelling him. It’s heaven.

I’m also given the role of the parrot during ‘Mr Slater’s Parrot’ and find myself in a large parrot costume saying ‘hello’ repeatedly. On stage at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire I spot a sign on the wall that reads ‘No Crowdsurfing’. As the parrot I look at the sign, then at the audience, then back at the sign . . . the audience get it and roar their approval at the idea.

Bearing in mind that the average age of a Bonzo fan is quite advanced I gingerly lower myself onto a group of geriatrics. The costume is like a large plastic cocoon, and I find myself gently moving around the auditorium until I hear someone cry out: ‘Oh Christ, my hip’s come out!’

It’s a sublime thing being on tour with a lot of elderly art students, they have a different appreciation of the world. Amongst the Sanatogen and prescriptions for age-related ailments the tour bus is an absurdist’s dream in which we play games like inventing a word for the crack in a sailor’s wooden leg. ‘Queech’ is the winner. Sam Spoons makes little paper models of Phill and me. And as we drive north up the A1 we become aware that they’re increasingly anxious as we pass Chester-le-Street, and then, as the Angel of the North swings into view, they all stand and applaud. Artists celebrating another artist. One or two of them have tears in their eyes.

After the tour, in a private dining room in Elena’s L’Etoile in Charlotte Street, they discuss plans for a new album and Neil says the most extraordinary words:

‘And now that we have two new Bonzos.’

He means us. He means Phill and me. Phill and I look at each other open-mouthed. We are no longer stalkers. We are part of the band. We have gone from the kind of people who try to crowbar Bonzos’ lines into every conversation: ‘A man’s not dressed unless he’s got a nice shirt on, guv’nor, is he?’ To the kind of people who might deliver such lines for Bonzos’ fans of the future.

We make another album – Pour L’Amour des Chiens. It’s a bit Sturgeon’s Law, though ‘Wire People’ is a good song, and another tour is planned. But remember those tensions I mentioned? Well, they resurface. We find ourselves rehearsing at the Bisley shooting range in Surrey – is this some kind of absurdist decision? It’s like an ancient village cricket pavilion – and old disagreements, some seemingly festering since the late sixties, raise their ugly heads.

I hear Roger Ruskin Spear shout, ‘You’re not my father, Neil!’

I see Neil, the only real musician besides Rodney Slater, voted out of arranging the songs. ‘Well, you just tell me what to play then.’

I watch Sam Spoons assume leadership of the morning rehearsal, and find myself walking round the room in line with the rest of them banging dustbin lids together – no one knows what’s going on, and Sam bursts into tears because he can’t explain what it is he wants to achieve.

They’re such a lovely bunch of men, but it’s over, again. It’s such a sad thing to see.

But I have another string to my bow. Or should I say mandolin.