As we all prepare to self-isolate, Luxury London picks some of our favourite, era-defining films set in the capital. Predictably, Richard Curtis and Hugh Grant clear up
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
“You could choke a dozen donkeys on that! And you’re haggling over one hundred pound? What d’you do when you’re not buying stereos, Nick? Finance revolutions?”
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Guy Ritchie’s first and finest feature film, just gets better with age. A sharp, stylish insight into London’s gritty underworld, the film made a household name of its director and kick-started the acting careers of ex-driver Jason Statham and a former footballer by the name by Vinnie Jones – who proved he could be just as intimidating on screen as he was on the pitch. Witty, pacey and packed full of poster-worthy one-liners – “If the milk turns out to be sour, I ain’t the kind of pussy to drink it. You know what I mean, Nick?” – Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is the best British gangster flick of the past quarter-century – know what I mean, Nick?
Chosen by Richard Brown, editorial director
About a Boy (2002)
Having invented a son to impress single mum Rachel (Rachel Weisz), wealthy bachelor Will Freeman (Hugh Grant) faces a conundrum when she invites him, and his fictional child Ned, to a playdate. Enlisting the help of misfit teenager Marcus (Nicholas Holt), Will unwittingly enters into a relationship that forms the basis of this coming-of-age tale, which touches on themes of friendship, suicide and teenage anxiety. In Nick Hornby’s original novel, the story is set in Islington, but the film adaptation is shot across the capital, with Will’s apartment located in Clerkenwell, his local supermarket in Richmond, his hair salon in Westbourne Grove and his favourite restaurants (Otto Dining Lounge and Hakkasan) in Maida Vale and Hanway Place respectively. And let’s not forget Regent’s Park, the scene of Marcus’s accidental crime involving a duck and a stale loaf of bread…
The much-loved Penrith tea room scene from Withnail & I (actually filmed at a chemists’ in Milton Keynes)
Unspecified cake it was, which for this publication is a rarity. “Just bring out the cakes.” “Cake, and fine wine.” The context was all. A couple of wastefully drunk and filthily arrogant unemployed actors bumbling into the Penrith Tea Rooms at closing time. And Richard E Grant’s unimprovably bonkers follow-up, somehow both slurred and royally, commandingly, articulate: “We want the finest wines available to humanity.”
It was 1986 and the filming of Withnail and I. Yet the writer and director Bruce Robinson, for whom this was pretty much autobiographical, was back in 1960s Camden. Railing as ever against an unestablishable establishment: and moving the setting to the Lake District effectively moved the decades. The distaste on the face of the proprietor, the fine character actor Llewellyn Rees, surely echoes the pursed lips of all who had dogged Robinson’s 60s days with twitching curtains and long noses when all he was trying to do was … have some fun.
Robinson is thankfully very much alive, as I found a few years ago. As are of course Grant and Paul McGann, the “I” of the film’s title. Rees died in 1994. But I managed to catch up with photographer Murray Close, who took this still. Did anyone, I ask, have an inkling of what a success, a cult, that film would become, with its timeless celebration of simple friendship and generational differences?
“Not at all. Bruce had to fund the last reel himself. We didn’t have a clue. It was a great script, of course, but everyone was an unknown – though I believe Bill Nighy read for the main part. But slowly, slowly, videos and then DVDs came out, and … yes, in hindsight, it’s a great film, but I just remember it as truly tremendous fun, with a UK crew of a certain age and propensity to laughter.”
Murray’s website has many more extraordinary outtakes. The “Penrith tea-rooms” location was in fact what is now a chemists’ shop in Stony Stratford, Milton Keynes. The last few lines of Robinson’s script, with Grant doing Hamlet by the London Zoo wolves, still enthral. “What a piece of work is a man … [yet] man delights not me, no, nor women neither, nor women neither.” [The wolves are unimpressed. Withnail exits into the rain.
Pop reviews and in-depth analyses of current and classic films from around the world.
Living disillusioned in a post-Brexit Instagram-filtered age, standing at the periphery of the job market in a state of horror as the surplus of impressive graduates wander by, it is easy to feel alone. Marwood is the voice of reason when he reassures Withnail “we’re in the same boat”; we are all Withnail when he fires back “Stop saying that! You’re not in the same boat. The only thing you’re in that I’ve been in is this fucking bath!”
When Robinson wrote and directed this largely autobiographical low-budget film in 1987, he did not anticipate that the trials, tribulations, and hilarious mishaps of Withnail and “I” (played respectively by Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann) would leave such a legacy. A coming-of-age comedy based on two hapless drunken out-of-work actors struggling through the bleak aftermath of the swinging sixties, the film offers a nostalgic yet ultimately unappealing portrait of the 1960s bohemian lifestyle. Living in squalor so intense they feel “unusual” when they enter the kitchen, the eccentric self-deluding thespian Withnail and the slightly more low-key narrator “I” (Marwood in the screenplay) are both disenchanted with life.
The appeal of Withnail and I lies in its ability to reflect our flaws and fears whilst making them indisputably funny. In the documentary Withnail and Us, Robinson himself sums up the timelessness of Withnail and I as a movie that “touches the moment we’ve all had when we’re all broke, all starving, all aspiring, and all knowing that it might not work in our lives.” As a final-year student I rejoice in the bleak realistic portrayal of a kitchen filled with unidentifiable matter, an unwavering belief in the curative powers of alcohol, and the general unease of aimless direction. Marwood’s maudlin realisation that they “are indeed drifting into the arena of the unwell” in tandem with Withnail’s “I feel like a pig shat in my head” are sentiments embarrassingly yet undeniably relatable.
“I have some extremely distressing news. We’ve just run out of wine.”
Withnail’s first utterance in his iconic sophisticated slur sets the perfect tone for Bruce Robinson’s unbeatably British, ingenious tragicomedy Withnail and I. Last year marked the film’s 30th anniversary, and like a fine wine, Withnail and I has improved with age.
When Robinson wrote and directed this largely autobiographical low-budget film in 1987, he did not anticipate that the trials, tribulations, and hilarious mishaps of Withnail and “I” (played respectively by Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann) would leave such a legacy. A coming-of-age comedy based on two hapless drunken out-of-work actors struggling through the bleak aftermath of the swinging sixties, the film offers a nostalgic yet ultimately unappealing portrait of the 1960s bohemian lifestyle. Living in squalor so intense they feel “unusual” when they enter the kitchen, the eccentric self-deluding thespian Withnail and the slightly more low-key narrator “I” (Marwood in the screenplay) are both disenchanted with life.
The appeal of Withnail and I lies in its ability to reflect our flaws and fears whilst making them indisputably funny. In the documentary Withnail and Us, Robinson himself sums up the timelessness of Withnail and I as a movie that “touches the moment we’ve all had when we’re all broke, all starving, all aspiring, and all knowing that it might not work in our lives.” As a final-year student I rejoice in the bleak realistic portrayal of a kitchen filled with unidentifiable matter, an unwavering belief in the curative powers of alcohol, and the general unease of aimless direction. Marwood’s maudlin realisation that they “are indeed drifting into the arena of the unwell” in tandem with Withnail’s “I feel like a pig shat in my head” are sentiments embarrassingly yet undeniably relatable.
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
