I’m in Camden Town right now. It means a lot to me because Camden Town is where the movie Withnail and I is set.
Every day, I pass the spot in Regent’s Park where out-of-work actor, Withnail, complains to out-of-work actor, Marwood (I), that he hasn’t had any auditions lately.
Withnail: Why can't I have an audition. It's ridiculous: I've been to drama school. I'm good looking. I tell you, I've got a fuck sight more talent than half the rubbish that gets of TV. Why can't I get on TV?
Marwood: Well I don't know. It'll happen.
Withnail: Will it? That's what you say. The only programme I'm likely to get on is the fucking news.
I first saw Withnail at 18 and immediately set about learning the whole film off by heart. I’d walk around the house, yelling on repeat: “Balls. We want the finest wines available to humanity, and we want them here and we want them now.”
I wasn’t the only person the movie turned mental. These days there are Withnail location tours, Withnail merchandise, high-end designers making Withnail-inspired trench coats, and Withnail nights at pubs where you watch the movie and match the lead characters drink for drink.
On social media, people often compete in Withnail quote-offs and one of my favourite things is seeing Withnail used as a verb. The first time I came across this was in Russell’s Brand’s Amy Winehouse obituary:
“I've known Amy Winehouse for years. When I first met her around Camden she was just some twit in a pink satin jacket shuffling round bars with mutual friends, most of whom were in cool indie bands or peripheral Camden figures Withnail-ing their way through life on impotent charisma.”
If you’ve got this far and don’t know what I’m banging on about, Withnail and I is a film about two struggling actors - Withnail (Richard E. Grant) and Marwood (Paul McGann) – who are weighed down by poverty, the London cold and relentless rejection.
As a circuit breaker, they escape to the country cottage of Withnail’s Uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths) for a weekend. But their problems follow them, as does Monty himself, who wants to have his wicked way with Marwood.
I’m not being unkind when I say that Withnail is an hilarious movie that is completely without jokes. There’s not much plot to speak of, either. It’s all performance, character, and situation, which means the vision needs to be executed perfectly. And writer-director Bruce Robinson is virtuosic in the way he balances it all. The movie isn’t just laugh out loud funny - it’s hyper real. It’s a love letter to the dream of being an actor. But it’s also about the transition to adulthood and dealing with the question of how long you can hold onto your dream before succumbing to a real job.
If the film, set in 1969, has an even bigger theme, it’s probably that it’s a farewell to the 1960s. Danny, the local dealer, says it’s "the greatest decade in the history of mankind … (and) we failed to paint it black.” And then: "They're selling hippie wigs in Woolworths, man". Danny’s despair at the end of the decade matches Withnail’s despair at farewelling his 20s – "I'm 30 in a month and I've got a sole flapping from my shoe."
Withnail is a rebel. And that’s why we love him. He’s punk. But he’s posh. You know if he could get his act together he’d be playing Hamlet at the Old Vic and out of this horrible mess. But alcohol has got him in a deadlock and Marwood’s devotion is the only thing keeping him alive: “I must go home at once and discuss Withnail’s problems in depth.”
The final stab in the face for Withnail is when Marwood gets a job when it was Withnail who was meant to be the star. Still, Withnail rallies and pulls out a bottle of 1953 Château Margaux which he’s stolen from Uncle Monty’s cellar. But Marwood, with his newly cropped hair, hasn’t the time for a drink. He has to get to his new job in Manchester. The film concludes with Withnail necking the Margaux on his own as it rains down on him. And it’s at that moment we see how fine an actor he really is as he recites Hamlet’s “What Piece of Work is A Man” speech, which ends: “Man delights not me; no, nor Woman neither.” And then he repeats. “Nor women neither.” And that’s when we realise we’ve barely glimpsed a woman over the previous one hour and 47 minutes – which has no doubt contributed to the characters’ malaise.
Withnail and I is a semi-autobiographical take on writer-director’s Robinson’s misspent 20s – living in Camden with his old acting mate, Vivian MacKerell, who had pretensions of conquering the world once he’d conquered whatever bottle of claret was sitting in front of him. And yes, MacKerell did actually swallow lighter fluid a là Withnail, leading to temporary blindness. Later, he would develop throat cancer, apparently more related to smoking than drinking lighter fluid, and ended up having to have his voicebox removed. After that, he fed himself through a tube into his stomach, via which he also channeled sherry and neat Scotch. But MacKerell loved Withnail and I and the fact that his friend, Bruce, had immortalised him. He would die in 1995, at 51.
My favourite story about the far reaching impact of Withnail is set years after the film’s release. Robinson and a friend are on a road trip and drop in on a rural pub – miles for anywhere.
“We were sitting in the garden with ducks all over, and there were these four boys. I didn’t know them, they didn’t know me, and I said to them completely out of the blue, ‘Do you know what kind of ducks those are?’ All four of them said, ‘Raymond Duck! Four floors up on the Charing Cross Road and never a job at the top of them!’ They were really aggressive, and they were Withnailing it after that, and I thought, ‘That’s quite astonishing. Here I am in the middle of nowhere, up a hill with these four wankers and ducks everywhere, and someone’s quoting my own lines back to me in a pejorative way because they think I’m not even worthy of hearing them.’ When we left I forced Wimbury to roll the window down and shout, ‘Scrubbers!’ at them out of the Range Rover.”
WITHNAIL AND I: THE FINEST TRIBUTE AVAILABLE TO HUMANITY
Brilliant article Adam, a perfect appreciation. Indeed, Withnail is one of those rarest of films, impossible to compare to any other. Richard E Grant's performance is Olympian - managing to play a cruel, selfish, narcissistic man-child which the audience nevertheless adores utterly from the first frame is surely one of the greatest sleights of hand of cinema acting, and pure genius.
We still use "I'm making time"