Happy birthday, Paul McGann! Born in Liverpool to a metallurgist and a teacher, McGann is one of five children—four of whom found their way into showbiz.
A member of the so-called “Brit Pack” (alongside big names like Tim Roth, Gary Oldman, and Colin Firth), the Liverpudlian actor turned his attention to television. It wasn’t until 1996, though, that McGann’s nerd credit was established. [ . . . ] More: Happy Birthday, Eighth Doctor Paul McGann! – Geek.com
Pulling Focus: Withnail and I (1987)26 NOVEMBER 2016 FEATURES, REVIEWS BY SHANE SCOTT-TRAVIS
“The best British comedy ever made? Possibly. A masterpiece? Unquestionably.”– Ali Catterall, Film4
From the tender and impassioned sound of King Curtis’ live recorded cover of Procul Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” in the opening scene to the finishing drizzly goodbye by the wolf enclosure in Regent’s Park, Withnail and I is a funny, affectionate, and wistful perfection from writer/director Bruce Robinson.
While Robinson has never been a prolific filmmaker and his following films so far have proven a tad unfulfilling by comparison, nothing can temper or depreciate the strikingly idiosyncratic pleasures of his coming out party, Withnail and I. A lamentably sentimental comic chronicle of impoverished living in late-1960s Camden Town, the Swinging Sixties as presented by Robinson is a booze-fuelled, bleak and grimy place of dreggy pubs, unkempt cafes, and offensively filthy kitchens.
