In the annals of British cult cinema, few films are as memorable, quotable, hilarious or counterintuitively heartfelt as Withnail & I. At once a buddy farce, a road trip film, and a drinking comedy (a drinking comedy that puts on the airs of a stoner flick), Withnail & I burst onto the ’80s indie scene in much the same way its title characters drunkenly barge into Penrith’s quaint, countryside, tea room.
Manically written and directed by Bruce Robinson (How to Get Ahead in Advertising, The Rum Diary), Withnail & I stars an incredibly put upon Paul McGann (Doctor Who, Alien 3) and consummate scoundrel Richard E. Grant (Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Loki). The film tells the tale of two hapless, hungover, out-of-work actors keen on leaving 1960s London in the rearview of their rusted out Jaguar MK2 as the make their way out to the remote British countryside. Having snagged the key to his flamboyant uncle Monty’s cottage, Withnail (Grant) and his flatmate Marwood (McGann) find that getting by on the Penrith moors might be more than they bargained for. Unplucked chickens, Charging bulls, half dead eals, lecherous landlords and an inability to obtain the “finest wines available to humanity” (“we want them here and we want them now!”), Withnail and I remains both a boisterous romp as well as an idiosyncratic insight into two of London’s most lovable lowlifes. But was the film as fun to make as it is to watch? To answer that query, author Toby Benjamin (Spirit of Talk Talk, My Eyes Have Seen The Glory), delves deep into this “paragon of animals,” this “quintessence of dust,” in his new book, Withnail & I: From Cult to Classic.
In this latest publication (courtesy of Titan Books), author Benjamin endeavored to collect a slew of new interviews from the cast and crew ranging from the aforementioned Robinson, McGann and Grant, to Ralph Brown (who played Danny the drug dealer), to the film’s composer David Dundas. In the book’s coverage of Robinson in particular, a portrait is painted of a career that best exemplifies the high highs and low lows of a life in show business. As an actor, Robinson’s worked with the likes of Franco Zeffirelli, Ken Russell and Francois Truffaut. Despite such lofty credentials, Robinson had also experienced extended periods of unemployment (much akin to the films two leads), not to mention a brief stint within the adult film industry (see Kleinhoff Hotel).
While some might argue that parts of the film wouldn’t play as well today, namely the string of homophobic moral panic that permeates the film (namely around Richard Griffiths’ uncle Monty character), co-contributor Martin Keady lays out how much of this derives from director Robinson’s real life experience, working on the 1968 film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, as (like Marwood with Monty) Robinson had to repeatedly rebuke Zeffirelli’s aggressive and unwarranted sexual advances. Robinson would later forge a career outside of Zeffirelli’s shadow, transitioning from acting into writing as he adapted Sydney Schanberg’s The Death and Life of Dith Pran into a screenplay for the much acclaimed Cambodian war drama, The Killing Fields. As Keady himself would word it, “The Killing Fields and Withnail & I are perhaps the finest two screenplays that anyone has ever written in succession.”
On a far more lighthearted note, Grant and McGann discuss their respective experiences during the audition and rehearsal process, with Grant calling the two week rehearsal period invaluable considering his then background in theater. Grant would go on to discuss how his own nine months of unemployment prior to assuming the mantle of the unemployable Withnail had informed his performance. “The frustration and resentment I experienced being out of work for months in 1985 absolutely fed into how I felt playing the role. That feeling of failure and wondering how to get through the day was something I was painfully familiar with.”
As for McGann, he recalled his agent sending him to some random West London address for a meeting with Robinson wherein the unruly director asked McGann to stay as a tide of would-be Withnails read opposite him (McGann himself, uncertain if he had even secured the role of Marwood). As per McGann, Mike Maloney (another actor within the Zeffirelli wheelhouse) was initially offered the role but turned it down (IMDb trivia however states that Maloney was offered the titular Withnail role which would later go to Grant). McGann would go on to muse about banging the dilapidated Jag into a skip in Chelsea as he had then only recently obtained his driver’s license (a prerequisite for being in the film). McGann also discussed shooting the beloved bull scene and how the animal (more afraid of the humans than the humans were of him) defecated itself and ran straight through a dry-stone wall in order to escape the shoot.
Withnail & I was produced by Handmade Films, a production company founded by former Beatle (and arguably the most introspective Beatle), the late great George Harrison (the one person regrettably not available for interview within the pages of this book). The company was largely notable for a filmography which included Time Bandits, The Long Good Friday and Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Revered films, each of them. Each one, a glorious cinematic swing for the fence. And yet, while each of these aforementioned films have attained a well deserved cult following of their own, they all pail in comparison to this timeless tale of two tramps whose mere existence functions as an affront to the tories of the then Thatcher controlled UK or even the post-Brexit proletariat of today. Toby Benjamin’s newly released Withnail & I: From Cult to Classic perhaps best exemplifies this in a series of exceptional well curated interviews, anecdotes and behind-the-scenes set photos.
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