1980s Classic Vol. 1: Withnail and I

For many, the first introduction to Bruce Robinson’s tale of friendship at the end of the ‘greatest decade in history’, appears not in the form of a video, a curry, and a group of mates, but by the discovery of an intoxicated body lying forlornly on the living room floor. ‘What happened here,’ someone will ask, to hear the reply: ‘He was playing the Withnail and I drinking game.’ Of course, anyone not familiar with the film might not immediately see the significance until reminded, ‘you know, the one where you drink every time Richard E. Grant drowns his sorrows in either alcohol or lighter fuel. Of course, the lighter fuel must be reserved only for terminal cases and those who can’t afford the alcohol.’

Of course many associate the film with student life. The living in squalor – the kitchen with an ever-growing tower of dirty dishes turning last weeks leftover chips and gravy into new life forms, larger with every day, seeking south for winter. It’s easy for your average student to take one look at the greasy stove and congregation of plates and cutlery (that are beginning to smell like a morgue) and decide to ‘sort it out tomorrow’. It’s even easier to start watching ‘Withnail and I’ trying to sort out their own messy sink because at least you get to keep your hands clean and have a few laughs for good measure.

Released in 1987, ‘Withnail and I’ was, during its production, hampered by a producer who couldn’t see the merits of the film, and a director who admitted he didn’t really know what he was doing. Bruce Robinson, by this time, had already accomplished himself as a writer. He’d been nominated for both Oscar and Bafta awards for his screenplay The Killing Fields which looked at the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia from the experiences of three journalists. Yet, his real passion was acting, or at least that was until he became disillusioned with whole practice after spending years being rejected and having to live off the state. However, since he couldn’t make it as an actor, he decided he may well profit from telling the story of his trials and tribulations. That’s where the genesis for ‘Withnail and I’ came from. But, Robinson’s script takes more from the essence of the period, and the way he was feeling at the time, than from any one situation. The film doesn’t rely on strong plotting, it relies on characters in a predicament; friendship in a world of confusion, counter-culture, and loss.

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