LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Vivian Stanshall: East London
built 423 days ago
Later, Vivian and his family lived and worked on the Thekla, a Baltic Trader, sailed 732 nautical miles from the east coast of England and then moored in the Bristol docks. His wife Ki Longfellow (on whom see below) had bought the Thekla in Sunderland, and converted her into a floating theatre called The Old Profanity Showboat. The ship saw the debut of Ki and Vivian's comic opera Stinkfoot. Vivian wrote 27 original songs for Stinkfoot, sharing some of the lyric writing with Ki. It was a huge success: people came from all over Europe to see it; some from as far away as America.
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It was in a Great British seaside resort that Vivian spent most of his childhood. Southend-on-Sea is a cheeky, presumptuous sort of place. For a start, it is some thirty-five miles to the east of London, rather than south. It is situated on the Thames Estuary; not quite the sea. It does have a famous funfair called the Kursaal and a mile-and-a-quarter pier, the world's longest. Gaily festooning the seafront are the famous illuminations, signalling Southend's status as an alternative to the drab, city streets of the capital.
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Stanshall wrote 27 original songs for Stinkfoot, sharing some of the lyric writing with his wife. The show involved bizarre characters that Stanshall imagined living under a seaside pier. It proved a success, with people coming from all over Europe and even America to see it. It was revived in London some years later, but flopped.
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![[Vivian about 1970]](http://retrieverimages.lycos.com/images/v/i/v/vivian-stanshall/i/002.jpg)
Vivian was born in East London in 1943 and then evacuated with his mother to Shillingford in Oxfordshire. He was an extremely gifted child, speaking his first words at four months and being able to have a conversation at ten months.
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