Richard E. Grant

Withnail and I: What a Piece of Work

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Withnail & I

Set in the dying days of the 1960s, Bruce Robinson’s semi-autobiographical tale of two unemployed actors is a triumph of screenwriting and a brilliant showcase for then-unknown stars Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann.

By David Cairns | May 2025

Bruce Robinson’s gift for colorful language is the most striking mark of his talent. This has doubtless held him back in places where translation is required or such dexterity is not appreciated. He himself once noted that a sentence in Withnail and I (1987), “We’ve gone on holiday by mistake,” hilarious and obviously absurd to a native English speaker, could lose everything as a subtitle: something like “We’ve erroneously gone on holiday” isn’t funny at all.

“The history of its meat clung about this house like a climate.” This is a line from Robinson’s sole published novel, The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman, and again it illustrates his gift for the grisly but amusing turn of phrase. His signature tone is disgust.

Robinson began as an actor, eventually rising to the foothills of near stardom—François Truffaut cast him opposite Isabelle Adjani in The Story of Adele H. (1975). But before that disappointment—Robinson loved the director but hated his own performance—there were, as they say, the early years of bitter struggle, and these, along with the decline of the sixties dream, are what Robinson documents in Withnail and I.

Marwood, the “I” character, is nakedly Robinson, wearing a lifelike Paul McGann costume. But Withnail, immortally played by Richard E. Grant, is Robinson, too, though he was substantially inspired by another unemployed actor friend. Marwood embodies Robinson’s paranoid aspect, while the shifty Withnail supplies him with plenty to be paranoid about.

Mainly focusing on these two characters (or one bifurcated one), the film must make a lot out of a little. It’s 1969, and two out-of-work actors, Marwood and Withnail, who share a dilapidated flat in London, take a holiday in the Lake District. Then they come back. That is the plot. Fortunately, the characters’ tendency toward exaggeration means there’s constant drama—they are, after all, actors. Marwood nervously hypes every crisis to hysterical heights, while Withnail oscillates between outrage, bravado, blind terror, and self-pity. If anything actually happened, it might be unbearable.

The script begins, more or less, with this scene description: “Dostoevsky described hell as perhaps nothing more than a room with a chair in it. This room has several chairs.” A brilliant, grimly whimsical joke, but impossible to actually represent on-screen. You can’t point a camera at that joke—all you’ll see is some chairs. But it starts the reader off on a note of mordant elation that the film must find more gradually.

Before the script there was Robinson’s unpublished novel, written when the misery of unemployment had reached its awful climax and Robinson had to laugh to keep from crying. Unemployment has always been treated as something akin to a criminal offense, but it was once possible to live and do creative work on the dole, if you didn’t mind being miserable, and British culture was incredibly enriched by many of those who pulled off this tricky feat.

Everyone recognized the brilliance of Robinson’s eventual script: they just didn’t want to make it. Fortunately, David Puttnam, a former adman emerging as the savior of British cinema, commissioned Robinson to write The Killing Fields (1984)—which won three Oscars and eight BAFTAs, including Best Adapted Screenplay—and George Harrison, the Beatle turned producer, gave Robinson a chance to direct his dream project at Harrison’s company Handmade Films. The Killing Fields, Harrison once said, was exactly the kind of film he didn’t want to make—he preferred comedies. He’d fallen into cinema when Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) lost its budget at the eleventh hour, he mortgaged his house to back it, and it was such a hit that he kept on gambling. Eventually Harrison may have had cause to regret that decision—his producing partner’s fraudulence nearly bankrupted him—but British cinema benefited enormously from Handmade’s support of original filmmakers like Terry Gilliam and Neil Jordan.

Robinson’s success with Killing Fields meant he was now worth £250,000 per script. He sold Withnail and I to Handmade for a pound, so the company could feel it was cutting a profit already, and then spent much of his directing fee on shooting the scenes that Handmade had originally wanted cut. I saw the film at its 1987 Edinburgh International Film Festival premiere, where everyone laughed themselves sick. And then waited for it to actually get released. And waited.

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Colin Farrell names the only “perfect” movie in cinema history

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Colin Farrell, himself part of some absolute bangers, names the one film that he views as flawless. Read more about the movie and its significance.

By Jacob Simmons

It hasn’t always been smooth sailing for Colin Farrell, but he’s managed to navigate a string of potential career-enders and come out the other side as a respected and sought-after actor. Long before donning a fat suit and putting on a questionable mob accent, the Irishman was delivering standout performances in critically acclaimed films. In Bruges, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The North Water, The Banshees of Inisherin—all beloved by legions of devoted fans. But has Farrell ever made a ‘perfect’ movie?

Colin Farrell
Colin Farrell

 

According to the actor himself, he hasn’t. That’s because, in his eyes, there’s only one ‘perfect’ movie, and he’s not in it. When speaking with Rotten Tomatoes about some of his favourite films, Farrell gave some great answers. Back to the Future, Some Like It Hot, and Lawrence of Arabia all came up, but he reserved his highest praise for Bruce Robinson’s definitive black comedy, Withnail and I.

“Oh man, is there a funnier and more poignant film that captures the anarchic irreverence of that period?” he posited. “It’s just perfect, from start to finish, in my book. Ridiculously quotable with mad, perfect performances across the board. Richard E Grant is pure genius, but everyone in the film gives amazing and hilarious and heartbreaking performances. Again, I think loneliness and isolation, and a desire to belong play big parts in this one. The story is as much a love story between the two leads as anything, with a very sad break-up of sorts taking place at the very end, with Withnail left out in the rain.”

Released in 1987, the film tells the story of Withnail (Grant), a spiteful, hard-drinking, out-of-work actor who blames all his problems on anyone but himself. He and his friend Marwood (Paul McGann), who is credited by some as the eponymous ‘I’, end up at the country estate of his eccentric uncle (Richard Griffiths), where the limits of their friendship are tested.

Much has been written about the movie, which has its fair share of famous fans, particularly about the relationship between the two central characters. Much has been over whether or not Withnail and Marwood are secretly in love with each other or if the former’s affection is unrequited by the latter. The ending scene that Farrell mentioned, in which Marwood leaves his old roommate after finding work, is often cited as confirmation of this. However, it has to be said that Grant prefers the theory that Withnail is too self-obsessed to be in love with anyone but himself.

 

Even after decades in the limelight and countless other excellent roles, Withnail continues to be Grant’s most enduring and celebrated character. The film is one of the most popular cult movies around (if that’s not too much of an oxymoron), with fans going out of their way to find new ways to celebrate. There’s even an accompanying drinking game; drink every time Withnail does. For the love of God, do not attempt this yourself. You will not survive.

Somewhat surprisingly, Farrell has never co-starred with Grant in anything. The two actors would be a perfect fit for each other, and Farrell would most certainly be up for collaborating with a hero of his. If any casting directors are reading this, you know what needs to be done.

Source: Colin Farrell names the only “perfect” movie in cinema history

Richard E Grant’s renaissance is a pleasure to watch – and it all began with Withnail and I

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Planning to go away this Christmas? It is worth revisiting this top-shelf comedy about two boozy would-be actors who go on holiday by mistake

By Dee Jefferson

If you like what Richard E Grant is doing now – in series such as The Franchise and films like Can You Ever Forgive Me? and Saltburn – you really should see where it all began: the 1987 flop turned cult classic Withnail and I. Grant delivers a tour de force comedic performance as an alcoholic out-of-work actor living with his best mate in a squalid London flat at the tail end of 1969 who goes on a rural holiday by mistake.

It’s funnier than it sounds. In fact, Withnail and I is top-shelf comedy, with some of the finest lines and line readings available to humanity. (A personal favourite: “This place has become impossible. Perpetual rain, freezing cold and now a madman on the prowl outside with eels.”)

t didn’t play this way at the beginning: like many cult classics, Withnail and I bombed at the box office and was generally poorly reviewed, accreting fandom gradually – in this case, assisted by the spread of VCR technology. In particular, it passed like a secret handshake through students – who recognised simpatico spirits and familiar dilemmas – which I assume is how I discovered it, in the early 2000s.

 was familiar with the title and cover – it was a fixture of video stores in the 90s – but I’d somehow assumed it was too rarefied for my unrefined palate; only to discover, in my chaotic uni years, that it was a kind of spiritual homecoming. In my soul, I’m probably eternally pottering around the muddy countryside of Withnail and I, seeking beauty (and potatoes) while beset by madmen brandishing eels.

Circa 2000, Withnail and I was probably my first encounter with Grant, but with hindsight I realise it cemented the qualities that have defined his best roles in the decades since: sharp-tongued patrician hauteur interspersed with manic energy and childlike glee. It’s also a masterclass in playing drunk – all the more miraculous for the fact that he is a lifelong teetotaller.

Grant plays Withnail (pronounced “WITH-null” in the film, though curiously you only ever hear fans – even British people – pronounce the film’s title “WITH-NAIL”), an upper-crust scion with a world-class talent for drink and drugs, and a more dubious talent for acting; in his own estimation, “a trained actor reduced to the status of a bum”, thanks to his inability to secure an audition.

The titular “I” (played by Paul McGann) is Marwood: middle class, biblically beautiful, and also an actor, though mildly more successful – not only has he secured an audition, he’s about to get a callback. Like Withnail, Marwood is a prodigious drinker, but he’s less of a connoisseur of psychotropics than his friend; more a dilettante. The film opens on him in the middle of a panic attack, surrounded by the souvenirs of a speed- and booze-fuelled 60-hour bender.

This is ostensibly Marwood’s story, but from the moment Grant enters the picture around five minutes in – sepulchral in his hangover, wrapped in tailored tweed and brandishing a wine bottle – it’s clear he’s going to steal the show. “I have some extremely distressing news,” he informs Marwood. “We’ve just run out of wine.”

Writer-director Bruce Robinson based the film on his semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, drawing on his years as a struggling actor living in Camden. This is not the stylish, swinging 60s London often depicted on film, but rather a down-and-out working-class melting pot at the fag end of a decade of dissolution. The hangover is a bastard.

Marwood and Withnail, adept at dodging reality, decamp to the countryside: a holiday cottage in the Lake District owned by Withnail’s wealthy uncle Monty (the irrepressible Richard Griffiths), himself a failed thesp. Monty is also somewhat of a failed homosexual, and as we discover, Withnail has secured the keys to the cottage by offering up his unsuspecting friend as an amuse-bouche. When Monty arrives at the cottage looking to claim his prize, the wheels of the already rickety wagon fall well and truly off.

None of this plays out in the way you’d expect, which is really the strength of all the best films and certainly the best comedies. Writing from his own life – including his experiences of predatory older gay men in the clubs and casting couches of 60s London – Robinson is humanistic, even tender, and never glib. Monty is no monster. Even Withnail, a paragon of patrician entitlement, is more damaged child than diabolical fiend. And Marwood is no angel: we come to see that he has an exploitative instinct every bit as ruthless as his friend’s.

Withnail and I is foremost a comedy, but the film’s enduring emotional power lies in its devastating portrayal of a friendship that has tipped from intoxicating high into melancholic low. Marwood, as ambitious as his friend but more pragmatic, moves on – leaving us with the ambivalent sense that this is both necessary and a betrayal. But as with all trips, don’t let the inevitable comedown put you off going on the sublime and often ridiculous journey.

Source: Richard E Grant’s renaissance is a pleasure to watch – and it all began with Withnail and I | Movies | The Guardian

Richard E. Grant’s career comes full circle in “The Franchise”

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Richard E. Grant’s career comes full circle in The Franchise

By Tim Lowery

“I’m a trained actor reduced to the status of a bum!” cries Richard E. Grant’s Withnail early on in Withnail And I, delivering the line as if he’s Olivier at the Old Vic while he’s, in actuality, surrounded by the squalor of his Camden flat (and shirtless and slathered in lotion in a feeble attempt to keep warm), looking equally hungover and drug crazed and like he hasn’t slept days, and addressing or, better yet, performing for his roommate/drinking buddy, the “I” from the film’s title. It’s no stretch to say that Withnail is the role that made Richard E. Grant, who, before booking Bruce Robinson’s brilliant 1987 cult comedy, was not unlike his character, at least as far as career prospects: a struggling actor in London who was pushing 30 and whose opportunities felt fewer and farther between. “If Daniel Day-Lewis hadn’t turned down Withnail And I, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you right now,” the actor told me over coffees with a smile during an interview in 2018, before saying that, even 30-plus years into a successful and impressive career in films with far, far more eyeballs that Withnail, the line he was most often asked to repeat in public was from his screen debut—specifically, “Monty, you terrible cunt!”

Whether or not you’re completely taken by HBO’s new comedy The Franchise, one of its inarguable, let’s-keep-watching-this-every-Sunday-night joys so far is that it has Grant back in full thespian-diva mode, channeling a bit of the same Entitled Actor Spirit that made him such a revelation in Withnail. In fact, it feels safe to assume that one of The Franchise’s network notes was something along the lines of “Needs more Richard E. Grant,” as the guy, playing veteran stage actor Peter, steals just about every scene he’s in, usually while butting heads with Eric (Daniel Brühl), the director of Tecto: Eye Of The Storm, the prospective Marvel-esque blockbuster that The Franchise documents the making of, or Adam (Billy Magnussen), Tecto’s sweet but, at least in the eyes of Peter, unserious and undeserving star.

To the former, he spits out, in the show’s second episode, the following in an attempt to be No. 1 on the call sheet even though he’s the film’s supporting character: “I’m very low maintenance. Now get that through your thick fucking skull, Daniel!” (By that installment’s end, he indeed becomes “1 A” on said call sheet.) And in the third episode, he grouses to Daniel again, this time about a note: “The distance between nodding and cowering is 100,000 miles,” he tells his director with drama-queen vigor before shifting into faux humility. “I’m sorry, I just cannot see my way to a cower. Lord knows I’ve tried.” As for the latter—that’s Adam, a nice-guy bro who’s very much Peter’s comedic foil—he’s more fond of ribbing if not outright insulting him, preferably in public, describing him in an on-set TV interview as ““instinctual like a bear or a hog. And I say this, you know, with respect. It’s like working with a chimpanzee.”

Series creator Jon Brown and the show’s writers (among them, the great Tony Roche of the deliciously cynical political satire The Thick Of It by Armando Iannucci, one of The Franchise’s executive producers) are clearly Withnail fans themselves, tossing in little nods to Grant’s character in the film throughout. “Morning, cunts!” Peter cheerfully greets the director & co. outside of his trailer, which recalls that aforementioned memorable line from Withnail. In a different episode, as the camera makes its way past that trailer, you can hear Peter yelling offscreen, dripping with indignation and drama, “How fucking dare you?” which has echoes of “How dare you?” in Withnail, when Grant’s wannabe thespian blasts “I” (played by Paul McGann) with a stage-worthy overreaction.

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