Withnail & I | The heartbreak that lies beneath its quotable dialogue

Withnail And I
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Bruce Robinson’s 1987 comedy-drama is one of the most quotable British films of all time. But there are some deeper, heartbreaking undercurrents in Withnail & I.


The most quotable British film of all time? Withnail & I must be at least high on the list, even if it’s likely dropped a few places since the late 90s and early 2000s ā€“ a period where it was fashionable among university students to recite entire chunks of dialogue and indulge in ill-advised drinking games.

For the most part, writer-director Bruce Robinson’s semi-autobiographical comedy-drama is simply about two 20-something, out of work actors ā€“ Richard E Grant’s Withnail and Paul McGann’s ‘I’, named Marwood in the script. The pair go on holiday by mistake, they drink too much, they bicker, they carefully manoeuvre their way around the affections of Withnail’s closeted thespian uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths).

It’s a simple story, certainly, and its languid wit is such that its true depths might be easy to misplace on an initial viewing. This writer recalls lending a VHS copy of the film to a work colleague, who later said, “It’s great, but it’s not really about anything, is it?”

Quotable and funny though Robinson’s film is, however, Withnail & I isn’t just about drinking and blagging a free holiday in the countryside. From its opening music to its Hamlet-in-the-park conclusion, there’s a deeper sadness that extends beyond the bounds of the film itself.

In his introduction to the book version of his screenplay, published by Bloomsbury in 1989, Robinson gives an insight into the background that inspired his film. From 1966 to 1976, Robinson was himself a drama student and aspiring actor; like Marwood, he shared a squalid London flat with fellow thesp Vivian MacKerrell ā€“ well-spoken, singularly charismatic but stricken by alcoholism, he formed the basis for the Withnail character Robinson began writing about at his kitchen table in the late 1970s or early 80s.

“There isn’t a line of Viv’s in Withnail & I,” Robinson later wrote, “but his horrible wine-stained tongue may have spoken every word.”

Robinson’s story began life as a novel before he turned it into a script in the 1980s. By 1984, he’d earned an Oscar for his screenplay for war drama The Killing Fields ā€“ valuable acclaim that no doubt helped him get the funding together for Withnail & I, his directorial debut. Shot for a little over £1m over the course of seven weeks in the latter months of 1986, Robinson’s film somehow captured the dank rawness of 60s Britain ā€“ the crumbling, stately mess that was London before it was torn down and gentrified; a picturesque yet austere country retreat untroubled by modern conveniences like gas central heating or double glazing.

If Withnail & I’s about one thing, it’s about endings. The first sign is there in that beautiful, woozy rendition of A Whiter Shade Of Pale, as played in the opening credits by saxophonist King Curtis. The original song by Procol Harum, its circular lyrics vaguely alluding to drink, drugs and the spectre of death, is already perfect for the themes of Robinson’s movie; by using Curtis’ instrumental cover, however, the words are missing but the distilled essence of their feeling remains.

Procol Harum’s version was released in 1967, what was later referred to as the Summer of Love. By 1969, the Hippy era was well and truly over; the murder of Meredith Hunter at the 1969 Altamont Free Concert suggesting that the age of peace and love was about to be replaced by something much darker. The Curtis cover was taken from Live At Fillmore West ā€“ an album released in 1971, mere days before the musician was murdered outside his New York apartment. Again, the real tragedy sits just outside the frame.

Withnail & I’s characters allude to endings more than once. Most oft-quoted is Danny, as played so brilliantly by a slurring Ralph Brown. “Theyā€™re selling hippie wigs in Woolworths, man,” he says gloomily between puffs of his Camberwell Carrot. “The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over. And as Presuming Ed here has so consistently pointed out, we have failed to paint it black.”

richard e grant thursday murder club withnail & I
Richard E Grant: on career-best form in Withnail & I. Credit: Handmade Films.

More pertinent still is Uncle Monty, who at his retreat in Penrith, holds forth on the subject of beginnings and endings over breakfast one morning. “The old order changeth, yielding place to new,” he says, quoting Tennyson while fiddling with his lighter; “and God fulfils himself in many ways. And soon, I suppose, I shall be swept away by some vulgar little tumour…”

It’s a line that only grows more affecting when it’s placed next to Robinson’s true-life experience. Although both he and Vivian drank heavily through their student years, Robinson soon found work as an actor and his friend didn’t. The last time Robinson saw Vivian was in 1975, by which point the latter had ‘lost his looks’ and was ‘drinking himself to death’. In 1995, Vivian died of throat cancer at the age of 50.

Even without this additional knowledge, there’s true heartbreak in Withnail & I’s concluding scene in the rain. Marwood, having finally landed an acting gig, says farewell to Withnail, leaving his old friend alone in Regents Park and its caged wolves ā€“ a location Robinson and Vivian often frequented themselves in the 60s. Withnail, clutching a bottle and choosing the wolves as his (literal) captive audience, begins to recite those unforgettable lines: “I have of late, wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth…”

Originally, Robinson wrote a much more pointed scene for Withnail in which he took his own life. The film arguably didn’t need it; the unexpected, aching sadness in Richard E Grant’s performance tells us everything we need to know. Withnail has seen his friend for the last time. For Marwood, the beginnings of a new life beckon; for Withnail, clutching his bottle and the rain seeping into his shoes, the future looks singularly bleak.

Likeable, quotable, the subject of assorted drinking games, Withnail & I is about the end of a decade, the end of a particular lifestyle, the end of a friendship. But as embodied by Withnail, it’s also about something even more poignant: wasted potential. In that performance in the park, we see the great actor Withnail could have been, if only he could have cast the bottle aside sooner.

As Robinson writes on the final page of his original screenplay: “By Christ, that was the best rendition of Hamlet the world will ever see! The only pity was it was only the wolves that saw it.”


NB: An earlier version of this article stated that Vivian MacKerrell died ā€˜shortly afterā€™ Bruce Robinson saw him in 1975. This has since been corrected.

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