Withnail & I

A pair of drunken anti-heroes they may be, but Marwood and Withnail struck a chord with students that continues to resonate

- Bruce Robinson

BRITISH cinema boasts a rich comic heritage that spans vehicles for star comedians transplanted from music hall, variety and radio (Will Hay, Arthur Askey, Norman Wisdom), the Boulting Brothers satires, whimsical Ealing comedies and on to the broader offerings of the ‘Doctor’ and ‘Carry On’ series of films. The 1980s offered a series of idiosyncratic character comedies, among the best being Gregory’s Girl, Local Hero, A Private Function and A Fish Called Wanda. However, none has acquired as large a cult following as Withnail & I.

As in so many 1980s films, its soundtrack kicks off with a seedy alto saxophone, which is actually King Curtis’s version of A Whiter Shade of Pale, played across the opening credits as the camera surveys the dismal contents of a cluttered bachelor flat. The décor suggests Holmes and Watson’s pad at 221b Baker Street has been given a makeover by Steptoe and Son, but it’s actually the home of two unemployed, substance-abusing young actors, the histrionic Withnail (Richard E. Grant) and his sweeter-natured, journal-keeping pal Marwood (Paul McGann), who also provides a narrative voiceover.

The story is set back in time, towards the end of the 1960s, which ultimately gives the film an elegiac undercurrent. It begins and ends in Camden, London NW1, as much the epitome of pokey urban greyness then as the parts spared post-1980s gentrification remain today. Cold and miserable, alternately moping about in the flat, the park and their local, where they are verbally abused by a fellow drinker, the two decide to visit Withnail’s Uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths), a similarly frustrated former thespian, and persuade him to give them the keys to his holiday cottage in Cumbria.