Withnail and I

It’s 1969. Peace and love has come to a close. Flower power has gone to seed, fallen to the acid rain of LSD. The trip free lovers embarked on has ended rancorously. Death at Woodstock. Murder at Altamount. The cold war heating up. Things threatening to go nuclear. London still swings, but from a noose. As for domestic politics, Harold Wilson is about to be evicted. In his place will be the Tories. If fresh starts and new beginnings are Eton schoolboys, then hell may well be imminent.

This is the context for Withnail and I, Bruce Robinson’s superlative film on a country that has breathed its last and died an ignoble death. I’ve loved Withnail and I ever since I saw it at uni. A few years ago I bought the script – and read it regularly for laughs. Last night my brain hadn’t come down from a week at work, so I slipped it a beta blocker in the form of this night-time read. If you’re a fan of Withnail and I, then I really recommend the script to you because the stage directions are as good as the dialogue.

Take how Robinson describes the characters at the beginning: Marwood is described as ‘milk white with insomnia.’ He’s ‘seventy-five per cent good looks and the rest is anxiety.’ How succinct is that in getting across the dichotomy of Marwood’s headshot splendour and mental chaos? Then, there’s Withnail, described as ‘pale as an oven-ready chicken….He wears a tweed overcoat. Corduroy trousers and brogues. There’s class here somewhere.’ I love how that sentence closes: ‘somewhere.’ Among the squalor is respectability. Like Richard III buried in a scruffy council car park.

I (Paul McGann) and Withnail (Richard E Grant)

Withnail and I are two actors reduced to the state of bums. They have been ‘resting’ for so long that they’re in danger of rigor mortis. I is Marwood, the narrator of the story (his voice-over populates the film); the more talented/reliable of the two. Withnail, on the other hand, has the Sunset Boulevard problem of the pictures being too small for him. A great actor must immerse themselves in a role, reduce their character into someone else’s - Withnail is too mercurial for this. He is too big for the boards, too big for the box. Withnail wouldn’t just chew the scenery, but the crew, lighting rig and cast too. As a result of their unemployment, they set up their own business, a partnership, a liquor trade of sorts, where the bottom line is drinking – all covered by the investment firm ‘social security.’

The characters of Marwood and Withnail are based on Robinson and his friend, Vivian. The friends were out of work actors so filled their time researching the life of alcoholics. In the introduction Robinson shares his diary from the period. One entry dated November 1969 says, ‘I can hear Vivian groaning in the other room. I can’t believe this one. It’s almost biblical.’ This is Robinson’s stock-in-trade describing base behaviour with literate language. Later on, he’s reminded of how Vivian countered hangovers by drinking a bottle of scotch, reasoning ‘the only way of dealing with a hangover was to drink your way around it.’ The phrasing is so elegant and surprising that it’s no wonder these personal experiences were turned into a film twenty years later.

Vivian Mackerrell was the inspiration for Withnail

And what about the story? Well, given Withnail and Marwood live in a flat that has terminal cancer, it’s no surprise that they’re desperate to get out and breathe some fresh air. Their passport to freedom is Withnail’s uncle, Monty, an eccentric homosexual in the old tradition. A former actor he’s every bit the luvvie imbued in the history and language of theatre. He, therefore, takes a shine to the two boys. In them, he sees himself. Particularly in Marwood. In Marwood is where he sees himself. With the keys claimed, the boys head north to Cumbria. Mission? Detox lungs: reclaim pallor.

“We’ve gone on holiday by mistake.” Monty’s green idyll though is a long way from Eden. Pulling up at the drive, they soon discover paradise lost. The hot tap is purely for decoration, the draught is not the preferential definition and the larder is stocked for poverty. To make matters worse, the people they meet aren’t the ‘drinking cider and discussing butter’ kind, instead they view the pair as interlopers, characters that have taken a wrong turn and ended up in the wrong story. Like Oscar Wilde turning up in Wuthering Heights and expecting to be greeted warmly by Heathcliff. Pretty faces in the arse-end of nowhere.

On holiday.

This fish-out-of-water gives rise to so many funny incidents. There’s Marwood trying to evade the attention of a bull (‘Run at it shouting’), an altercation with a poacher in the pub (‘Don’t threaten me with a dead fish’) and Withnail trout fishing with a shotgun. When Monty turns up later, the class farce comes a bedroom one with Marwood trying to evade another randy bull; this time in human form.

For all the askew dialogue and situations, there’s genuine pathos too. Both have dreams of being actors. Each wants to escape the reality of their circumstance. When Withnail boxes himself into a phone box to make a call, we see his desperation and frustration. His hope of playing the 'Great Dane' is going to the dogs. He can’t even understudy a minor role let alone attain the biggest. It’s difficult that his best friend is an actor too: any success Marwood gets will only make his failure more profound. It’s in his interest for his friend to fail – if he doesn’t then their tandem will topple.

Withnail and I is my favourite film. It’s widely regarded as a British cult classic. Which begs the question: why is something so funny just a cult concern? In terms of Withnail though, this is poetic. The film ends with him reciting Hamlet to the wolves in Regents Park, as opposed to the public of the West End. He was never meant to get popular acclaim. Sometimes the most interesting characters in our lives don’t. Unpolluted by fame, uncorrupted by success, he’s real. Monstrous, but truly real. There's no theatrical fakeness about him. For that, I raise a pair of pints to Withnail and all of life's dreamers.

Withnail and I: The Original Screenplay was bought from Fopp in a 2 for £5 deal years ago. I don’t imagine the deal still exists. You may have to look online for a copy.