Vivian Stanshall (born Victor Anthony Stanshall; 21 March 1943 – 5 March 1995) was an English singer-songwriter, musician, author, poet and wit, best known for his work with the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, for his exploration of the British upper classes in Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (as a radio series for John Peel, as an audio recording, as a book and as a film), and for acting as Master of Ceremonies on Mike Oldfield's album Tubular Bells.

Stanshall was born on 21 March 1943 at the Radcliffe Maternity Home Shillingford, Oxfordshire. His father, Victor George Stanshall (born Vivian), was, at the time of his son's birth an RAF corporal, later a company secretary, then company director (FCIS). His mother was Eileen Monica Prudence (née Wadeson). He was christened Victor Anthony. He lived with his mother while his father served in the RAF during the Second World War. Stanshall described this early period as the happiest time of his childhood.

When the war ended his father returned, but the young Victor found him difficult and comparatively stern after having been alone with his mother. His father made him speak with a "plummy" accent for which he later became known. The family moved to the father's hometown of Walthamstow, Essex, where Stanshall's younger brother Mark was born in 1949. With six years between them, the brothers were never close.

When he was 10, the Stanshall family moved to the Essex coastal town of Leigh-on-Sea. He attended Southend High School for Boys until 1959. Stanshall then studied at Walthamstow College of Art, where he met fellow students Ian Dury and Peter Greenaway.

As a young man, Stanshall (known as Vic) earned money doing various odd jobs at the Kursaal fun fair in nearby Southend-on-Sea. These included working as a bingo caller and spending the winter painting the fairground attractions. To set aside enough money to get through art school (his father having refused to fund this), Stanshall spent a year in the Merchant Navy. He said he was a very bad waiter, but became a great teller of tall tales.

Stanshall enrolled at the Central School of Art and Design in London. He joined fellow students in forming a band (including Rodney Slater, Roger Ruskin Spear and Neil Innes, who was studying art at Goldsmiths College). Innes said of their first meeting: "We first met in a big Irish pub in South London, the New Cross Arms ... he was quite plump in those days, and he was wearing Billy Bunter check trousers, a Victorian frock coat, black coat tails, horrible little oval, violet-tinted pince-nez glasses, he had a euphonium under his arm, and large rubber false ears. And I thought, well, this is an interesting character." At about this time, Stanshall changed his first name to 'Vivian', the name his father had abandoned. This was not made his legal name until 1977. Those who knew him from his student days continued to call him 'Vic'. Later friends and collaborators knew him as 'Viv'.

The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band were named after a word game that Stanshall played with co-founder Slater, in which they cut up sentences and juxtaposed fragments to form new ones. 'Bonzo Dog/Dada' was one result which they liked. The band initially performed under this name, but grew tired of explaining what Dada meant; hence they changed it to the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, 'doo-dah' being a quaint expression that both Slater's mother and Stanshall himself used to describe everyday objects. Later this name was shortened to The Bonzo Dog Band, or just The Bonzos.

Much of the band's original repertoire was based on comedic re-workings of songs from the 1920s and 1930s, found on 78 records, bought for pennies from local flea markets.