Withnail and I: cast and crew screening

The first time I saw Withnail and I was on my fifteenth birthday. The second time I saw Withnail and I was on my fifteenth birthday. I had to watch it twice because the first time I couldn't understand a word of what they were saying. It was a rite of passage for me: my older sister used to quote it all the time, and in watching it I knew I had finally grown old enough to appreciate jokes about booze, drugs and sex. I was, inevitably, wrong about that, as I only just picked up that Uncle Monty was gay, I didn't know what the word "ponce" meant, and the bits with Danny the Drug Dealer actually scared me. What can I tell you, I was at boarding school and my favourite passtime was playing the cello. However, on the second viewing of the night, I did at least find it very, very funny, and I taped it off the TV next time it was on and watched it several more times. And even though I hadn't seen it for years, Withnailisms have seeped into my daily conversation: "I've got The Fear!" (daily, there's always something), "I've come on holiday by mistake... I'm not from London" (pretty much every time I leave town), "Bastard must have died" (when my agent hasn't called), "Bring me the finest wines known to humanity" (on the phone to the Wine Society) and so on.

Last night, I was lucky enough to get a ticket to the 20th anniversary cast and crew screening on Withnail and I at the bfi. (The usual suspect was responsible.) It was the first time that I had seen it on the big screen and it really rewards the larger size: you suddenly appreciate the exquisite detail of the production design, the glory of the Lake District vistas, and the unspeakable beauty of Paul McGann's jawline. Also, I had never noticed just how many vegetables Uncle Monty has about the place. It was interesting to note that because the audience was wall-to-wall Withnail obsessives, the hugely famous lines didn't get as much of a laugh as you'd expect due to their familiarity, and the real enthusiasm was reserved for slightly less well-known moments (in the Penrith tearooms, "We're going to buy this place and install a fucking jukebox" got a round of applause.)

After the film, the incongruous figure of Sue McGregor emerged to record an interview with Paul McGann ('I'), Richard E Grant ('Withnail'), Bruce Robinson (writer / director) and Ralph Brown (Danny the Drug Dealer) for the 'Reunion' slot on Radio 4. Previous reunionees, as McGregor informed us, have included Margaret Thatcher's first election team, and prisoners from Robben Island, so to say that she was out of her comfort zone with this lot is an understatement. The four emerged in trendy older man uniform - jeans, shirts and jackets - and the process of extracting blood from stones began. ("Are you a sponge or are you a stone?" [another quote, not one of Sue's questions])

I suppose that after twenty years of answering questions about Withnail and I, it does start to lose a little of its freshness. I suppose that it is a better idea on a show called Reunion to reunite people who don't get together all the time anyway, so they exhibit some excitement about seeing each other again. I suppose when you work at the BBC it is a good idea to test the height of the microphones so that there is at least a fighting chance of the answers to the questions being fully audible, and I suppose that those answers might have been more involving if the questions had been posed by someone with a passing interest in the topic - the audience questions were markedly better than McGregor's own. I also suppose that the atmosphere in the room was not entirely assisted that we were in there from 6.30 to 10.30 and you're not allowed to bring food in, or indeed allowed to piss in your seat (there was, I'll admit, one 15-minute break).

What I know for sure is that Paul McGann is not someone you would ever wish to invite to a dinner party. Pretty much when any of the other three were asked a question they answered it gamely enough, and plenty of interesting information was conveyed. (My favourite fact of the night was that Richard Griffiths was 38 years old when he played Uncle Monty, which does resolve my ongoing confusion as to why he hasn't aged in the past 20 years. My second favourite fact: the live chicken of "kill it before it makes friends with us" fame is the same as the dead, "shouldn't it be more bald" chicken sitting on the brick in the oven.) However, when Paul McGann was asked a question, he would first wait for about a minute in silence while he contemplated his reply. This even if it was a question addressed to the entire panel and he was the last to speak. Then. With. Huge. Pauses. Between. Each. Word. He. Would. Say. Something. So. Unspeakably. Pretentious. That. It. Frequently. Defied. My. Comprehension. For the four hours we were in the cinema, I'd say that a good hour was comprised just of Paul McGann pausing. Some poor bastard is going to have to cut all of the silences out of Paul McGann's answers and it's going to take forever, and what he says is *still* not going to make any sense.

Having said all of that, there was a real magic in looking at the fresh faces of McGann, Grant and Brown up on screen and then their rather more haggard forms in real life in front of you, and Bruce Robinson in particular was a lively interviewee, probably because he doesn't get people shouting GET IN THE BACK OF THE VAN at him on a daily basis. But even Robinson himself, at the end of the interview, described Withnail and I as "a cholostomy bag around my neck", which pretty much summed up the panel's attitude to the entire night. A fun but flawed evening, then, and if you haven't seen Withnail and I, I heartily recommend that you do so. Twice.