Bruce Robinson - Withnail and I

First published in Great Britain 1989

This electronic edition published in 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Movie copyright 1986 Paragon Entertainment Corporation

Screenplay copyright 1989 by Bruce Robinson

New Introduction 1995 by Bruce Robinson

This edition first published 1995

This electronic edition published 2015

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epub ISBN 978-1-4088-7731-9

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For Viv

This is almost certainly the last time Ill ever write anything about Withnail and I. Just in case it doesnt come out too good Ill get to the point immediately. I want to dedicate this new edition to my friend Vivian. Under normal circumstances (and in respect of Viv) Id have put some effort into this, worried about it for a week, and spent another writing it. But Im feeling unnormal. Ive got two different headaches. One on top of the brain the size of a fried egg. And the other about a yard long hanging off my left eye. You dont want the details, but I went on holiday and an Italian gave me a poisoned oyster. This is the only true thing Im going to tell you here. So far this bastard snail has cost me over two thousand pounds in the Nuffield Hospital, and busted every deadline I promised Bloomsbury. I promised a fax in about an hour but I wont be sending it because I havent written it. And I can tell you Im panicking. I just phoned them up and told them the fax machine was down, but that I had a repair man on the way who arrived and assured me transmission would be available by twelve o'clock. Now its two-forty-five, and Im considering phoning them back and telling them the fax repair man just died. Im sorry about this, but Ive got a body in the room, Ill have to post the introduction tomorrow. But theyre not going to believe me. After all the bullshit Ive pumped out over the last three weeks, theyre not going to believe anything. What they absolutely one hundred per cent know, is that I havent written it yet. What they dont know, is that I cant. Im on two pints of intravenous antibiotic a day, and its given me the block. I simply cant find the wherewithal for the words I want. So what Im going to have to do is commit the unthinkable and steal some old ones.

From 1966 to about 1976, I kept a diary, and page after page of this is about Vivian and I. I met him in 1964 in our first year in drama school. He wore a blue suit and shades and looked like Marlon Brando. Everyone thought he was going to be a star. Within ten minutes I was his closest friend, and so was everyone else. Everyone loved Viv. He wasnt a bad actor (though when we left Central School he hardly ever got a job). Wasnt a bad writer either (although I dont ever remember him writing anything). The reality is that, if he had acted, or had written, he wouldnt have excelled at either because the interest wasnt there. What Vivian was brilliant at was being Vivian. That was his genius, and everyone who ever met him was overwhelmed by it. His nicknames were the spine and crime. I dont know where the first came from, but the latter predicated on his ability to spend all day in the pub, and always with discretion navigate his turn to buy a drink. Crime doesnt pay. But none of us cared because his company was worth the price. Viv was into literature, Keats and Beaudelaire, and turned me on to both these poets. Plus the funniest book Ive ever read, the great Rebours, is one of two novels Marwood shoves into his suitcase at the end of the film.

There isnt a line of Vivs in Withnail and I, but his horrible wine-stained tongue may as well have spoken every word. Without Viv, this story could never have been written. And all Ive got to do is look back through this old diary with its daisies stuck under yellowing Sellotape, to realise why. Vivian and I lived Withnail and I for a long time before that weird thing happened in my head, and I had to sit at the kitchen table and try and write it down.

April 16 1975

Hadnt seen V. for two years. Hes lost his looks but not his habit. Scotch before breakfast. He doesnt eat breakfast. Vivian is drinking himself to death. He said, If theres a God, why are arses at the perfect height for kicking? and I said Ive got to agree with you.

Going backwards now and plunging deep into the hangovers. I cant believe the amount of hangovers.

November 16 1969

In bed for two days. I can hear Viv groaning in the other room. I cant believe this one. Its almost biblical.

I simply cant believe the amount of drinking. Practically every entry starts with a description of a hangover, and they are all different, like Eskimos have twenty different ways of describing snow. This one was gin and retsina and lasted four and a half days. It gets about a page and a half, adjectives all over it, as I looked for different ways to describe pain. In the middle of it there was a knock on the door, that kind of banging that means that someone wants money. It went away and came back at ten. I needed somebody elses God to get out of the fucking bed. Viv was already in the hall wearing somebody elses mac. What do you want? he said. Ive come to cut you off, said the cunt, Im North Thames Gas. He got up a ladder hed brought with him, and said, Which is your meter? That one, I said, too ill to be dishonest. No it isnt, said Vivian, its the other one. And the representative of the board went about the business of cutting off the gas to the flat downstairs. An hour later we broke into it and stole his Scotch. Vivian was of the opinion that the only way to deal with a hangover was to drink your way around it. Jesus, I remember you drinking them out. I remember you drinking the lighter fuel in the middle of a blistering argument. But Id forgotten that I was a member of the Conservative Party.

January 16 1970

V. came back and said we should join the Conservative Party. What for? I said. Because they give you sherry. (Apparently hed met some accountant called Bill Twococks who told him this was the case.) That night we got on our suits and walked over to Primrose Hill. The Conservative Party was in a basement and consisted of about six women and a photo of MacMillan on the wall. A tall twot with a ludicrous accent and a second-hand Saab wanted us to canvass. We said we would, but didnt get any sherry, so we threw their fucking leaflets over a hedge.