Manchester Evening News – 18th April, 2015

The Withnail and I star was at the department store to show off his latest scene Jack Covent Garden.

Richard E Grant launches his fragrance Jack Covent Garden at Selfridges, Exchange Square. Photo: Sean Hansford

By Emily Heward

Film star Richard E Grant was in Manchester today to launch his new fragrance at Selfridges.

The Withnail and I actor may seem an unlikely candidate for a celebrity parfumier – but one whiff of his latest scent, Jack Covent Garden, at the luxury department store in Exchange Square and it’s clear this is no vanity project.

Cutting a dapper figure in a Union Jack blazer, the 57-year-old’s passion for his patriotic perfume came across as he chatted animatedly about the inspiration behind it – the fruit, flower and vegetable market that used to be at the heart of London’s theatreland.

The unisex scent also nods to the area’s theatrical history, from the flower-seller character Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady to Nell Gwyn, the real-life orange-seller turned Restoration actress and mistress of King Charles II.

Richard, who worked as a waiter in the area after moving to London from Swaziland, where he was born, said: “When I was thinking of creating a second fragrance I wanted it to be based around the history and my experience of Covent Garden.

“Oranges, roses and ginger were the three key ingredients I thought of, because on opening nights actors are very often given fruit and flowers and will use ginger to clear their throats.”

Photo: Sean Hansford

While other stars are content to merely lend their name to a fragrance, it has been a labour of love for Richard, who has not only bankrolled it but spent time sampling oils in the world’s perfume capital Grasse, on the French Riveria, before working with expert ‘nose’ Alienor Massenet in Paris to develop it.

The end result smells fittingly fresh, with top notes of orange, lime and ginger layered over middle notes of rose, pimento and peppercorn and base notes of carrot oil, iris and musk.

Richard’s first perfume, Jack, hit the shelves – and the headlines, for having marijuana notes – last year. But his first foray into fragrance came, he says, when he was just a child.

The self-confessed ‘compulsive smeller’ said: “I had a huge crush on somebody when I was 11 and three quarters in Swaziland and I couldn’t afford to buy her perfume with my pocket money.

“So I went and collected some gardenia and rose petals which I boiled in sugar water and put them in jam jars and buried them in the ground for two weeks. Of course, they were stink bombs.”

Photo: Sean Hansford

It was handbag designer Anya Hindmarch that convinced him to give perfumery a proper go when she caught him with his nose buried in some blooms on holiday.

And he’s never looked back, with Jack already a best-seller and a third fragrance now in the pipeline.

Richard, who is currently appearing in US TV series Dig and filming forthcoming ITV drama Jekyll and Hyde, said: “I’m just very grateful it has worked out.”

Jack Covent Garden is available exclusively at Selfridges.