Latest news with #WithnailandI
Budapest Times
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Budapest Times
An acting career takes off
It's only once the book is opened that 'With Nails' turns out to have a fuller title, 'With Nails: The Film Diaries of Richard E. Grant', so potential readers might not be wise to expect reminiscences of the usual variety, the old 'I was born in such-and-such a place on such-and-such a date, and Dad worked as a such-and-such and Mum was a such-and-such…' Immediately after this title page comes the publisher's information, and it reveals that the book was actually first published in 1996, a bit of a long time ago when you consider that Grant has made some 60 films since then. After all, next the Contents page lists chapters on only nine films: ' Withnail and I', 'Warlock', 'Henry and June', 'LA Story', 'Hudson Hawk', 'The Player', 'Dracula', 'The Age of Innocence' and 'Prêt-à-Porter', all from 1987 to 1994. There one other chapter titled 'More LA Stories' in which will be found further anecdotes of the Hollywood experience, pretty much a long round of parties, lunches and encounters with the colony's movers and shakers, the rich and famous, not to forget actual auditions, read-throughs and acting. Also, intriguingly, there is an 'Epilogue'. Something post-1996? No, this latter is just a shortish note on the parallel between getting the nod that you've passed the audition and being signed to convert your private diary into a public screed. Also now, though, comes an unannounced 'Post Script', and it contains a clue that it dates not from 2025 but from 2015. It would seem that the 'Film Diaries' also had a new life then. The 'Post Script'mentions the film 'Gosford Park', which was released in 2001, and gives the fact that Grant has been in London for 33 years, which we can work out would be 2015 because the book opens proceedings in 1985, which Grant says is three years after he emigrated from colonial Swaziland to England. Again, we can deduce that his arrival would have been as a 28-year-old, because if we look up his life elsewhere we find that his full name is Richard Grant Esterhuysen and he was born on May 5, 1957 in the Protectorate of Swaziland. Now that's fascinating. Why Swaziland? Many famous British people turn out to have been born in India, Burma, Malaya and other colonial outposts, the offspring of administrators sent out from the home country. But Swaziland? It's a logical question when he is seemingly a through-and-through Englishman. In the shortest of biographical notes the publisher simply informs us that 'Richard E. Grant was born and brought up in Mbabane, Swaziland', no date or anything, plus listing a few of his films and a couple of books he wrote, and that he lives in London with his family. It isn't until deep in the book that Grant, who often refers to himself self-deprecatingly as 'Swazi Boy' – such as in how did Swazi Bboy' get to be with all these film stars – opens up a little. His father had been Minister of Education during the British colonial jurisdiction of Swaziland until Independence in 1968, after which he was made an honorary adviser. The country was called the 'Switzerland of Africa', having relative economic stability, a single-tribe population and single-language status. The Grants lived in a hilltop house overlooking the Ezulweni Valley, meaning Valley of Heaven, with a panoramic view for 60 kilometres. Swaziland is now named the Kingdom of Eswatini and it is three-quarters surrounded by South Africa. In the chapter on 'The Player', Grant is at a party chockablock with 'names' and he spies Barbra Streisand. Getting introduced, he tells her that as a 14-year-old on a visit from Swaziland to Europe and England with his father – Home Leave as it was colonially called – they saw her 'Funny Girl', and the young Grant was thunderstruck, instantly falling in love. Back home he wrote to her 'care of Columbia Records' saying: 'I have followed your career avidly. We have all your records. I am fourteen years old. I read in the paper that you were feeling very tired and pressurised by your fame and failed romance with Mr Ryan O'Neal. I would like to offer you a two-week holiday, or longer, at our house, which is very beautiful with a pool and magnificent view of the Ezulweni Valley. 'Here you can rest. No one will trouble you and I assure you you will not be mobbed in the street as your films only show in our one cinema for three days, so not that many people will know who you are… ' etcetera. Days, weeks, months, years he waited but no reply. Now, in a party festooned with the likes of Al Pacino, Whoopi Goldberg, Jeff Goldblum, Diane Lane, Christopher Lambert, Julia Roberts, Jason Patric, Sandra Bernhard, Joel Silver, Annie Ross, Glenne Headly, Timothy Dalton, Robert Downey Jnr., Winona Ryder and more, here she is. He can barely speak in awe and she asks, 'Are you stoned?' He manages to tell her he is allergic to alcohol, whereupon she says, 'I know you from a movie'. This turns out to be 'Henry and June'. He confesses to the fan letter, which of course she never received, and she says she doesn't remember being exhausted then, 'must just be the usual press stuff'. He manages 22 minutes with 'Babs' – he timed it – but knows he is just another geeky gusher. While she is an idol with a significant place in his life and experience, he of course can have none in hers. He asks if he can kiss her hand in farewell, to which she says OK and laughs, saving her from Grant's further frothings. Grant writes how he arrived in England only to be 'marooned, becalmed, beached and increasingly bleached of self-confidence' as he embarked on his chosen career path. Unfortunately he found himself 'among the 95 per cent, forty-thousand-odd unemployed members of Equity' (the actors'trade union). He may be exaggerating to make his point. Nonetheless, the possibility of a role in a BBC production arises. But it would be as Dr. Frankenstein's creature. And there's an audition for the panto 'Robin Hood and the Babes in the Wood'. Humiliation. Who the hell do you think you are, he asks himself? Brando? Olivier? Go back to Swaziland. Fortunately he has a loving wife for support. He changes his agent. And then the Big Break. Handmade Films, formed by ex-Beatle George Harrison and his business partner Denis O'Brien in 1978 to finance the controversial Monty Python film 'Life of Brian', is going to make something called 'Withnail and I', about two out-of-work actors in squalid circumstances in London, and Grant lands the part of Withnail. This black, anarchic and eccentric film is surely one of the most hilarious ever made, beloved of anyone with a twisted sense of humour, including your correspondent. Grant doesn't need to do anything, to say anything; you only need to look at him to laugh. While Streisand said she recalled him in 'Henry and June', most other people he meets loved 'Withnail and I'. It made his career. Hollywood to Grant is 'a Suburban Babylon', 'the land of liposuction', 'the State of the Barbie'. He eats cold Chinese food with Madonna, has an odd shopping trip with Sharon Stone, works for pivotal directors Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. He talks parenting with Tom Waits. He notes the short statures of screen macho men Stallone and Schwarzenegger, the madness that was ' Hudson Hawk'… Richard E. Grant sees himself as a grounded man minus therapist, futurist, assistant, nutritionist, manager, lawyer and publicist, whom he labels fleece merchants. Still, there's piles of pampering – luxury hotels, first-class air travel, limos, per diems. Oh God, it's all so stratospheric. No wonder he had such a dreadful time filming in lowly Budapest in 1990. Poor chap, he hated absolutely everything – the airport staff, grey high-rises, dirty factories, potholes, sludgy Danube, queues, hotel, food, thermal bath, studio. Sorry about that, sir.
AU Financial Review
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- AU Financial Review
Forget flowers – how about a bouquet of mushrooms?
Hurtling towards another Mother's Day, that famous line from the film Withnail and I keeps coming to mind: 'Flowers are essentially tarts,' spouts Uncle Monty, played by Richard Griffiths, in the 1987 classic. 'I think the carrot infinitely more fascinating than the geranium.' I wonder what Monty would think of a bouquet of mushrooms?
Telegraph
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Hamlet: Eight actors with Down's syndrome ‘play The Dane'
Luckily for them, some of the greatest modern actors of stage and screen – Derek Jacobi, Mark Rylance, Simon Russell Beale, Kenneth Branagh, Benedict Cumberbatch, David Tennant, Paapa Essiedu and Ben Whishaw – have never encountered what Uncle Monty in Withnail and I famously lamented was the most shattering experience in a young man's life: the crushing realisation that he will never 'play The Dane'. Yet that sense of acute thespian disillusionment which he so memorably articulated ('When that moment comes, one's ambition ceases') may not be foremost in the minds of Peruvian theatre company La Plaza's actors, all of whom have Down's syndrome and so face far greater challenges. Their highly lauded 're-invention' of Shakespeare's universally acclaimed tragedy arrives in London following a sell-out run at the Edinburgh International Festival last year. Under the aegis of director, writer and community stalwart Chela De Ferrari, this Hamlet involves eight actors performing key scenes from Shakespeare's magnum opus, while also sharing their thoughts, feelings, and frustrations, and all dextrously interwoven with apposite text from the original. In so doing, La Plaza skilfully combines the timeless rumination on life, death and existential angst with a passionate, profoundly moving and unexpectedly humorous meditation on otherness, liminality and what it means to be a perennial outsider, given how society often ignores, pities or mocks those with 47 chromosomes (as opposed to the standard 46) and habitually excludes, infantilises and patronises them. From the opening footage of a baby being born to mimicking Laurence Olivier perform his legendary film role and a video call with Shakespearean colossus Ian McKellen to get tips on how to play Hamlet, this production contains many transcendent truths. Whether asking what dreams they are allowed to have, asserting the desire 'to speak and be heard' or accepting the fact that they 'will never escape the gaze of others', this is a searing critique of societal attitudes to neurodivergence. Performed in Spanish with English surtitles, it is in turns humbling, audacious and – a much over-used but in this instance wholly merited epithet – gloriously life-affirming. A palpable sense of playfulness imbues the cast's performances. Uncompromising and unapologetic, Octavio Bernaza, Jaime Cruz, Lucas Demarchi, Manuel García, Diana Gutierrez, Cristina León Barandiarán, Ximena Rodríguez and Álvaro Toledo all shine brightly, passing the princely crown to each other with dignity and aplomb. The bare stage and minimal props only enhance the power and range of their acting. (The famous 'To be or not to be' soliloquy rapped with rage and rare insight.) So, banish any preconceptions. Infectiously exuberant, enriching and clever, this production serves as a reminder that Shakespeare is accessible to all, and Hamlet is for everyone. Uncle Monty would doubtless have wept with delight.
New Statesman
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
How the Titanic sank
Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images The sinking of the Titanic is one of those historic events that only grows more vivid in our cultural imagination as the years go by. More than a century later, everyone has a friend with encyclopaedic knowledge of what happened, and there have been countless retellings across novels, Hollywood films and television dramas that have made even small details of the story notorious (the Case of the Missing Binoculars!). And here we have a major new podcast from the history company Noiser, hosted on BBC Sounds, which tells the story of the catastrophe over 13 lengthy episodes. Titanic: Ship of Dreams is narrated in ominous tones by Paul McGann, of Doctor Who and Withnail and I fame, who has a personal connection with events (his great-uncle, Jimmy McGann, was a trimmer down in the ship's engine room), and interspersed with the voices of experts, from historians to Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey and the 2012 TV drama Titanic. One talking head suggests there is only one story that is more popular 'in the history of mankind, and that is the story of how Jesus was crucified'. The pace is slow, yet it remains deeply compelling. Duncan Barrett's script is arresting and immediate. Unfolding in the present tense, it is full of human colour and overloaded with detail: not just crucial information such as the number of lifeboats and, yes, the location of the binoculars onboard, but the number of seconds it took for the ship to slide off the slipway and into the water at its launch on 31 May 1911 ('the longest 62 seconds in history') and the material used for the chairs in the Parisian-style bistro for first-class passengers (wicker). These small observations bring the ship vividly to life, and the scale of the project strikes us anew: not just the size of the vessel, but the number of people employed to build and sail it, the unfathomable luxury of the interiors, and the ambition with which it was executed. Clearly, the story has not been exhausted yet. [See also: The music of resistance] Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Related
Irish Examiner
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Podcast Corner: Actor Paul McGann has a family link to tale of the Titanic
The Noiser network is home to dozens of history podcasts - over 600 episodes - ranging from Napoleon to Hitler to Sherlock Holmes and The Curious History, hosted by domestic historian Ruth Goodman and with episodes on sheds, laundry, bins, and heating. Noiser's latest series is one most of us in Ireland will be familiar with. Launched on April 8, Titanic: Ship of Dreams is hosted by actor Paul McGann ( Withnail and I, etc), who sets out what we can expect over the course of the series, from first designs and the years of construction in Belfast to 'the fateful voyage that sealed the ship's fate and beyond', considering some of the questions that haunt Titanic scholars more than 100 years later: Was the captain really ordered to increase speed, why were so many iceberg warnings ignored in the leadup to the collision, and with almost 1,200 places available on the lifeboats, why were only 700 people saved? Paul McGann's great-uncle James was on board the Titanic. There's a vivid soundscape underpinning McGann's rather grand narration - and if anything deserves such oratory, it's the biggest ship ever built. Consider this, early in the opening episode: 'For a moment, she looks like she won't move after all. Freed from her wooden moorings, the giant ship stands stock still, a towering immobile monument. Then almost imperceptibly, she begins sliding towards the water, gradually picking up speed, five, 10, 15 miles per hour. Finally, after the longest 62 seconds in history, Titanic floats freely for the first time.' McGann also has a personal connection to the story. His great-uncle James McGann is known in the family as Titanic McGann. An experienced 29-year-old Liverpool lad recently returned from a voyage to South Africa, he's signed up for Titanic's maiden voyage. 'I never met Uncle Jimmy,' explains Paul McGann. 'He died almost half a century before I was born. But my brother, Stephen, you might know him as Dr Turner from Call the Midwife, has managed to piece together his story.' He adds: 'By rights, Uncle Jimmy should have nothing to do with Titanic." There are more Swedes onboard than Irish, we are told in the third episode, Into the Atlantic, as the Titanic stops off in Queenstown (Cobh). There are also 154 Lebanese emigrants onboard - about 10% of passengers. Amid McGann's narration are talking heads and historians, who help explain such titbits, also expanding, on this particular episode, on some of the quirks of the menu and how Titanic even has its very own 'ice man', serving cocktails and desserts. Meanwhile, in Queenstown, a sinister omen is apparently spotted. Atop the ship's fourth funnel stands a figure, soot black from head to toe. Some of the more superstitious Irish visitors are convinced it's a harbinger of death. In fact, the ghoulish figure, reveals McGann, is one of the engine room workers. 'For all we know, it could have been my great uncle Jimmy.' Read More Culture That Made Me: Des Kennedy, the Belfast-born director of the Everyman in Cork
