Richard E Grant remembers a family scandal that blighted his African childhood and explains to Jasper Gerard why he has gone back to his homeland to turn his painful past into a film.

“My father tried to shoot me but missed because he was so drunk,” says Richard E Grant. “He was furious I had tipped away a crate of his whisky.”

Today the actor is not coming over as the suave, slightly snakey gent who has starred in many movies and briefly held Hollywood enthralled. He is looking like a student on a gap year: battered flared jeans, collarless shirt and beads, all infused with a spooky youthfulness.

This is not coincidental. At 48 the star of Withnail and I and How to Get Ahead in Advertising has spent a year in the African bush, finding himself. He realised he had to quit Hollywood when his wife told him: “Your idea of current affairs now revolves around Arnold Schwarzenegger’s private life.”

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Thanks Sue.