PICK OF THE WEEK
WITHNAIL & I
Birmingham Repertory Theatre, until May 25
Are you the farmer? If that question sounds deranged, you are probably not of the generation that fell in love, as I did, with Bruce Robinson’s Withnail and I (1987) and its word-perfect, ultra-quotable screenplay.
Robinson has long resisted the idea of staging his classic, semi-autobiographical movie but he changed his mind when Sean Foley, artistic director of Birmingham Rep, suggested a way of doing it that would be true to the original but also more than a bloodless re-enactment. The plot of Withnail is minimal: two struggling actors sharing squalid digs in Camden Town in 1969, subsisting on booze and speed, realise they are “drifting into the arena of the unwell”; they head off to a remote cottage in Cumbria for a holiday; and then come back.
What makes the story unforgettable is the characterisation, the dialogue, the music and Robinson’s savage lampooning of, and deep affection for, eccentric Englishness. It is much to the credit of Robert Sheehan (Withnail), Adonis Siddique (Marwood/I) and Malcolm Sinclair (Uncle Monty) that they do not simply mimic the movie performances of, respectively, Richard E Grant, Paul McGann and the late Richard Griffiths. The stage players bring their own nuance and wit to the roles, and to great effect.
Alice Power’s set design is ingenious (especially when Withnail and Marwood are in the latter’s Jaguar Mark II, powered only by the music of Jimi Hendrix). Most of the famous soundtrack is played onstage by a band, which deepens the sense that this is a living, breathing production in its own right.
Withnail is a tale of endings: of an era, of a social order, of friendship. In the words of Danny the drug dealer (Adam Young): “The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over. And as Presuming Ed here has so consistently pointed out, we have failed to paint it black.” The result is a fine adaptation that breathes fresh life into one of the great British post-war comedies. I hope it is rewarded with a tour and a West End transfer.
STREAMING
THE RESPONDER
iPlayer, all episodes
It is quite something that the second season of Tony Schumacher’s formidable cop drama, starring Martin Freeman as Chris Carson, a frontline officer on the night shift, is even better than the first. But so it is.
Six months after we last saw Chris, he is still pulverised by stress, and searching desperately for a day job that will enable him to be a decent father to his nine-year-old daughter Tilly (Romi Hyland-Rylands) and dissuade his estranged wife Kate (MyAnna Buring) from relocating from Liverpool to London. If this involves doing a dodgy favour for his corrupt former partner DI Deborah Barnes (Amaka Okafor) – well, so be it.
Freeman has never been better as a broken man trying, in every sense, to escape the night. And Bernard Hill, who died on May 5, turns in his final television performance, as Chris’s menacing, desolate father, Tom – rivetingly so. RIP.
STREAMING
LET IT BE
Disney +
Michael Lindsay-Hogg is one of the most fascinating creative talents I have ever met and so I am pleased that his Beatles movie is finally being given its due – painstakingly restored by Sir Peter Jackson, who quarried the original director’s 56 hours of footage to make the three-part documentary Get Back (2021).
Let It Be has not been officially available since a brief video release in the early 1980s, and was, in any case, received with a measure of sourness on its opening in May 1970, only a month after Paul McCartney’s departure had finally broken up the greatest band of all time. It was immediately (and unfairly) dismissed as a grim break-up flick.
In fact, Let It Be is a deftly rendered movie about what happens when four Liverpool kids realise that they have grown up; still want to make music; still want to have a laugh; still love one another like brothers; but are encountering the complexity of leading separate adult lives.
There is no scene more touching than George Harrison helping Ringo Starr write Octopus’s Garden; and no scene more authentic than Paul and George bickering (Harrison: “I’ll play whatever you want me to play, or I won’t play at all if you don’t want me to play. Whatever it is that will please you, I’ll do it”).
And with the final spectacle of the famous rooftop concert in London on January 30, 1969 – the last time the Beatles played live together – a moment in time is captured on a note of glee, mischief and daylight magic.
Also: while I’m on the subject…
BOOK
LUCK AND CIRCUMSTANCE: A COMING OF AGE IN HOLLYWOOD, NEW YORK AND POINTS BEYOND by Michael Lindsay-Hogg
Alfred A Knopf
Lindsay-Hogg’s 2011 memoir – which encompasses a youthful meeting with William Randolph Hearst, working with the Rolling Stones and the Fab Four, his friendship with Peter Bogdanovich, the persistent rumour that Orson Welles was his father, and much more – is definitely worth your time and easily available online.
