on 28 january 2006 most of the surviving members of the band played a concert at the london astoria, to celebrate the band's official 40th anniversary. neil innes, "legs" larry smith, roger ruskin spear, rodney slater, bob kerr, sam spoons and vernon dudley bowhay-nowell appeared. there were also a number of special guests attempting with various degrees of success to "be" vivian stanshall, one of two members of the band not still living (the other being bass player dennis cowan). the various stanshall impersonators included stephen fry, ade edmondson, phill jupitus and paul merton (who needed to read the words to "monster mash" from cue cards at the show). the classic bonzo stage antics were in evidence, including performances on the theremin leg and trouser press. the show was filmed and was broadcast on bbc four and also released on dvd in may 2006.