Editing Vivian Stanshall (section)

==After the Bonzos==
Stanshall formed a number of short-lived groups during 1970 alone, including biG GRunt (formed while the Bonzos were still on their farewell tour, and including fellow Bonzos Roger Ruskin Spear and [[Dennis Cowan]], and with Anthony 'Bubs' White on guitar), The Sean Head Showband (again featuring Cowan and White), Gargantuan Chums, and the slightly longer-lived Bonzo Dog Freaks, with Innes and the ever-faithful Cowan and White (this conglomerate was also known simply as 'Freaks'). Early that year, biG GRunt recorded a well-received session for [[BBC Radio 1]] [[disc jockey]] [[John Peel]], and shortly afterwards made a memorable appearance on BBC television. Despite this promising start, biG GRunt dissolved during their first UK tour when Stanshall became incapacitated by the onset of an [[anxiety disorder]] that caused a nervous breakdown and would continue to plague him for the rest of his life.

However, he soon recovered sufficiently to record and release, on the [[Liberty Records|Liberty]] label, his first solo single "Labio-Dental Fricative/Paper Round", credited to Vivian Stanshall and The Sean Head Showband (an oblique reference to Stanshall having shaved off all of his hair during his breakdown), and featuring [[Eric Clapton]] on guitar. Later in the year, his single version of [[Terry Stafford]]'s song "[[Suspicion (Terry Stafford song)|Suspicion]]", credited to Vivian Stanshall and Gargantuan Chums and featuring [[Keith Moon]] and [[John Entwistle]] of [[the Who]], was released. Featured on the [[B-side]] was "Blind Date", the only officially released track by biG GRunt. (However, all of Stanshall's backing bands of 1970 featured the same core personnel, so it could be argued that they were essentially the same band, masquerading under a variety of names.)

In early 1971, Stanshall reunited again with Innes, Cowan and White as 'Freaks' to tour new material. In order to promote ticket sales, they were more often than not billed as 'Bonzo Dog Freaks'. With Keith Moon guesting on drums, Freaks quickly recorded a BBC radio session for John Peel that featured solo numbers by Stanshall and Innes alongside tracks from ''[[Let's Make Up And Be Friendly]]'', the Bonzos' yet-to-be recorded contractual obligation/reunion album of 1972. The session is also notable for marking the first appearance in any medium of an episode of Stanshall's magnum opus, [[Rawlinson End]]. Stanshall also found time during this period to be a founder member of the performance/poetry/music group [[Grimms]], alongside Innes, [[The Scaffold]] and associated poets and musicians. Although Stanshall left Grimms before they made any recordings, he did continue to perform live with them on occasion.

Throughout this period, still suffering badly with anxiety and now drinking heavily to self-medicate, Stanshall nonetheless continued to write, record and tour with Freaks and Grimms (and briefly as guest touring frontman for [[The Temperance Seven]] in 1972). He was also a regular guest, broadcaster and presenter on numerous series on BBC radio.

Despite his ongoing personal difficulties, Stanshall's humorous exploits continued unabated. His adventures with long-time drinking buddy Keith Moon (who would become Stanshall's regular partner in crime for much of the 1970s after producing and appearing on Stanshall's single "[[Suspicion (Terry Stafford song)|Suspicion]]") were legendary. In one quite possibly apocryphal example, Stanshall visited a tailor's shop where he admired a pair of trousers on display. Moon then arrived, posing as another customer, and admired the same trousers, demanding to buy them. When Stanshall protested, the two men fought and split the trousers in two, so that they ended up with one leg each; the tailor, understandably, became furious. Then, a one-legged actor – hired by Stanshall and Moon – arrived, saw the split trousers, and proclaimed: "Ah! Just what I was looking for! I'll buy them!"<ref>William Donaldson, ''Brewer's Rogues, Villains & Eccentrics'', 2002.</ref>

Thanks to his association with John Peel, in 1971 Stanshall was asked to fill in for the disc jockey while he was on a month's holiday. The resulting short series, titled ''Vivian Stanshall's Radio Flashes'', was recorded under the supervision of Peel's regular producer [[John Walters (broadcaster)|John Walters]] and broadcast on BBC Radio One on Saturday afternoons during August 1971. The series of four two-hour programmes were a mix of music and specially written and recorded comedic sketches. Of the original four episodes, only episodes 2, 3 and 4 remain in the BBC archives; these were re-broadcast on [[BBC Radio 4 Extra]] in 2014 and again in 2016.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04cfgn1|title=Vivian Stanshall's Radio Flashes|website=Bbc.co.uk|access-date=9 December 2017}}</ref> All four episodes and a Christmas 1971 compilation special have also circulated among collectors as low-quality, edited off-air recordings since the 1970s. Contributors to the sketches in ''Radio Flashes'' included Moon, [[Traffic (band)|Traffic]]'s [[Jim Capaldi]] and actress Chris Bowler. The sketches included a four-part serial adventure titled "Breath From The Pit", featuring the surreal exploits of a [[Dick Barton]] or [[Bulldog Drummond]]-style gentleman adventurer, Colonel Knutt (played by Stanshall) and his working-class sidekick, the 'likeable cheeky cockney, Lemmy'. This character was a thinly-veiled parody of the character of the same name from [[Charles Chilton]]'s ''[[Journey into Space]]'', with Moon playing the role of Lemmy.