I see Crow Cragg is up for sale (note to Bryan: The perfect holiday hideaway? Go on, you know you want it - think of the fun we could have...). The Withnail phenomenon is a curious thing - leaving aside the fact that Withnail & I is, for much of its length, one of the funniest British movies ever made. It's set in 1969, it came out in 1987, and nobody much noticed - perhaps because there could hardly be two more incompatible periods than the late 60s and the late 80s. As the man who sold the tractor ruefully remarks, 'There was nothing for 10 years but it has taken off. ' So it has, going into orbit some time in the 90s. The cult is huge, but Withnail seems certain to survive as much more than a cult movie - as a comedy classic. It also, incidentally, opens a wormhole in time back to the early years of Bryan and Nige - but that's another story...
Great caption - 'This pub is not in Penrith.'
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It's a cinematic Black Swan, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteAll sorts of perverse things about it: driven by a script rather than a concept; no female characters; no happy ending, not really a sad ending either, just a bit of Hamlet.
For some reason (possibly because its world is so well-defined and believable) it's endlessly watchable as well as quotable - very hard to tire of it.
i think it appeals to a sense of Englishness that was beginning to die out (well, murdered really) in the 80s.
ReplyDeletei stole Withnail's coat for a female character in my novel.
One of the early loves of my life, a fifties queen of the hop, went off with an electrical engineer to live in Penrith (think of Royston transplanted north west) bumped into her forty years later "oh it's you" she said, no longer queen of the hop.
ReplyDelete"How's it been", I said, "so so" she said, wisfully, the last time I had seen her in 1958 she was wearing the ultimate in cool, a prize won and lost. Now.... funny old thing life, regrets I do have some, well an awfull lot really. A lot less than the lady from Penrith, however.
He buggered off with a farmers son from Keswick. Left her with no children and an ongoing sense of betrayal.
What an absolute waste for one of the most erotic women I ever knew.
Once again, in the words of the inestimable Peggy Lee, is that all there is.
Withnail often reduces me to the maudlin.