“Withnail & Me: The Finale Photographs” To Be Exhibited At Proud Galleries

June10

A new exhibition of images taken while filming Withnail and I will open later this month.

“Withnail & Me: The Finale Photographs” reveal the close ‘camaraderie’ between Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann while filming the cult classic

The exhibition offers a glimpse behind-the-scenes of the film that gave us such quotable classics as “I must have some booze, I demand to have some booze!” and “As a youth I used to weep in butchers shops”.

Bruce Robinson’s 1987 feature Withnail and I might have only achieved around £500,000 at the UK box office when it first came out, but it has since achieved cult status. It also catapulted the then unknown Richard E. Grant to fame as Withnail, an unemployed-yet-aristocratic actor living in squalor with his friend Marwood (“I” is never named in the film, only in the screenplay), aka Paul McGann.

The pair, both struggling actors, while away the many days between auditions by getting increasingly drunk and rolling spliffs the size of carrots in their filthy Camden town flat. It is so cold that, at one point, Withnail attempts to stave off frostbite by covering himself in Deep Heat.

The film also stars the inimitable Richard Griffiths, who died last March aged 65, as Uncle Monty. Events take an amusing turn when Withnail persuades Monty to lend him a small cottage (Crow Cragg) in the Lake District for a holiday, but the thespian duo end up near-starving, faced with depressing English weather, angering the locals (after rudely shouting their demands for cake in the local tea shop) and – in Marwood’s case – having to fend off the unwanted sexual advances of Monty himself.

Renowned photographer Murray Close was present on the film set – mostly Milton Keynes, Hertfordshire and London – to shoot the actors between takes. His images give an impression of the “great sense of camaraderie” on set.

“Crow Cragg (which is actually Sleddale Hall, Hertfordshire) was as tiny and uncomfortable as it appears with nowhere to hide,” Close recalls. “You almost felt part of the scene crammed around the dining table.”

An exhibition of his behind-the-scenes photographs will open close to where much of the film’s action was set, at Camden’s Proud Galleries, later this month.

Some of the images (with various captions by Close) can be viewed below.

Withnail & Me: The Finale Photographs by Murray Close , 20 June to 1 September 2013, Proud Camden, www.proud.co.uk

“The Penrith Tearoom location was actually in Buckinghamshire, a small market town called Stoney Stratford. Bruce Robinson was pretty sure that the gentle locals we employed as extras wouldn’t be entirely understanding about the language in the scene, so he made sure he achieved the coverage he needed of them in the first few takes, in case they couldn’t take it any longer.” © Murray Close

“This was shot on one of the final days of shooting in Chelsea. Richard Griffiths was the most famous actor in the film by a long stretch, so it was a lucky break for me to be able to get this off-set image as Richard was rarely available to be photographed.” © Murray Close

“This, for me, is the shot that sums up the entire movie. It was a Sunday on the avenue next to the zoo in Regent’s Park. The wolves are not there anymore. We had to make the rain, much to the amazement of the tourists walking by. They were treated to some Hamlet and a prop man feeding snacks to the wolves to keep them in frame.” © Murray Close

“We had some good fortune with a wrecking ball and an abandoned alleyway in West London thanks to a location manager. However, no-one had alerted the police and as the boys drove away in the very unroadworthy Jaguar they were pulled over. No urine tests were involved.” © Murray Close

“The Lake District location for Crow Cragg was as tiny and uncomfortable as it appears. With nowhere to hide you almost fel part of the scene when they are all crammed around the dining table. There was such a great sense of comraderie amongst us as we all just got on with it.” © Murray Close