Unboxing Arrow Video's Withnail and I Box Set, Plus: Had Your Fill Of My Dick? Then I Have Moorcock To Show You...

An image-heavy post this week, but there's lots of goodies below, so do scroll down...

First off, Arrow Video's amazing Withnail and I limited edition box set has arrived, and it is a thing of beauty. A more detailed review will follow once I've had a chance to digest its many wonders, but here's a quick shufty at what it looks like... The first thing to say is that it's a lot bigger than I expected: 8 and a half inches square. Arrow offered 'personalisation' for early bird customers, with a choice of quotes on the back, a variety of front cover images to choose from, and a space for your name and the limited edition numbering on the back. As you'll see, I took the opportunity to have mine belong to a certain Uncle...

Only 119 of this edition, with the photo cover of the two of them sitting on the steps, was produced. Blimey, a real rarity then!

Take off the outer slipcase, and the 'book' packaging is revealed. It's 200 pages of Withnail-related articles, some reprinted from various sources (including Bruce Robinson's excellent and previously long-out-of-print Introduction to the book which published the screenplays to both Withnail and How To Get Ahead In Advertising), some (I think) new to this book. [UPDATE: Arrow Video have confirmed to me via the Twitter that all the pieces dated 2014 were indeed especially commissioned for this book.) Sprinkled throughout are a selection of Murray Close's classic on set photos, in glorious black and white (as they were originally taken).

Then, at the back, 4 discs: Withnail on Blu-ray and DVD, and then How To Get Ahead In Advertising on Blu-ray (its debut in that format) and DVD, both films remastered from the original negatives.

A fabulous job from Arrow, and that's even before I've put a disc anywhere near a player! This limited personalised edition is now sold out, but there will be a quantity of unpersonalised ones available pre-Christmas from Amazon, it appears from this listing. For more details on the slew of extras included, have a look at my earlier post.

Onwards. Regular readers of this blog will remember the hilarity that ensued when my Dick recently grew, but then quickly shrunk again before I had a chance to show it off in the window. Yes, my pile of Philip K. Dick books sold before I could display them (well what did you *think* I meant?), but no matter, I have plenty Moorcock where they came from... Here's a gallery of their wonderfully bonkers covers. I'll admit to having not read any Moorcock. Any offers on where I should start?

Withnail And I News Roundup - Back In Cinemas! Plus, Uncle Monty's Rolls and I Feel Like A Pig Shat In My Head

If you're reading this blog, there's a fair chance you've seen Withnail and I. In fact, you've probably seen it more times than you can remember, and tend to quote it on a daily basis. But if you've never seen it on the big screen, and you live anywhere near any of the cinemas showing Arrow Films' spanking new restored print, do make the effort. Withnail is a quotable cult comedy, yes, but you need a big screen to really appreciate that it's also a brilliantly shot, beautiful looking movie. Thanks to Arrow's work scanning the original negative, supervised by the film's original Director of Photography Peter Hannan, it's never looked better. You can see the new print at:

Curzon Victoria
IFI Dublin
Hackney Picturehouse
Olympic, Barnes
FACT Liverpool
Odeon Panton St
Odeon South Woodford
Odeon Bath
Odeon Colchester
Odeon Oxford Magdalene St
Odeon Guildford
Odeon Lincoln
Odeon Southampton
Odeon Kingston
Odeon Norwich
Odeon Manchester
Campus West Welwyn Garden City
Everyman Selfridges

If you can't make it to the cinema, and you haven't already bought one of the (very) limited edition personalised ones, you can pre-order Arrow's super-duper new Withnail Blu-ray set here.

The re-release has garnered a five star Guardian review here ("Every line is a quotable joy... I feel an intense envy for people who are about to see this for the first time." Amen to that!), and a fun look at the film's influence on fashion here. There's even an entertaining article in the Telegraph (and that's not a sentence I often have call to use) here.

This just in... Uncle Monty's Rolls is up for sale! The Steeple Times has the details here. Its original owner, one Nubar Gulbenkian, was quite a character, it would appear. A thrice married, flamboyantly bearded Armenian playboy, he was evidently also a fan of my favourite writer Saki, as he once paraphrased him by nicking his line about cooks, and applying it to his wives: “I’ve had good wives, as wives go, and as wives go, two of them went."

In other news, The Brunswick Yard in Penrith (Penrith!!), where Withnail Books' Little Shop is located, played host this weekend to its first Oktoberfest, joining forces with the funsters at the Moo Bar to present German beer, sausage (and pizza), and music (the amazing Jed on the Rädern der Stahls and a live performance by Beachmaster).

Rather more than just a few ales were consumed, and yes, the next morning I both had a bastard behind the eyes, and felt like a pig shat in my head. Mr Robinson, those descriptions are perfect.

Photos below thanks to the Moo Bar's Facebook page. The really ace ones which look like they were taken by a professional photographer look that way because they were taken by a professional photographer, John Burrows.

Withnail and I News Round-Up: An Amazing new Blu-ray, A Return To Cinemas... and Raymond Duck

It's time for a quick-round-up of Withnail-related news this week, mainly to bring attention to Arrow Video's out-of-the-blue announcement of the Withnail and I home video release to end all Withnail and I home video releases.

The film has had many, many releases on home entertainment formats, at least two each on VHS, DVD and Blu-ray already, but Arrow are the first company in the digital era to go back to the original camera negative and rescan the whole thing in 2K HD, so this release will surely look the best since it was in the cinemas. Certainly, the time I was lucky enough to see the film at the BFI, shown from a Blu-ray, with Bruce Robinson himself in the audience, he did comment afterwards that the 'print' looked very dark to him...

The full details of Arrow's limited edition, 4 disc collectors' box set, and how to order it, are to be found on their site HERE, but get a load of this:

4-DISC LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS:

New 2K restoration of WITHNAIL and I from the original camera negative, supervised and approved by director of photography Peter Hannan

Bruce Robinson’s follow-up feature, How to Get Ahead in Advertising, newly transferred from original film elements and approved by director of photography Peter Hannan

High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD Presentation of both films

Original uncompressed mono 1.0 PCM audio for both films

Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing

Audio commentary by writer-director Bruce Robinson

Audio commentary by critic and writer Kevin Jackson, author of the BFI Modern Classic on WITHNAIL and I

All four original ‘Withnail Weekend’ documentaries, first screened on Channel 4 in 1999, including The Peculiar Memories of Bruce Robinson, which looks at the director’s career, Withnail & Us, which focuses on the film’s making, and two shorter documentaries, I Demand to Have Some Booze and Withnail on the Pier

Newly filmed interviews with key members of WITHNAIL and I’s behind-the-scenes team (TBC)

Theatrical trailers for both films

Exclusive limited edition hardback book packaging (2,000 copies) containing new writing on the films, reprints of key articles on WITHNAIL and I, deleted scenes and more across 200 pages, illustrated with original production stills

More to be announced!

Available in 4 x 500 Numbered and Personalised copies (choose your favourite of four artworks as well as a name to be featured on the back and one of fifteen favourite quotes for a truly unique and personal edition!)

That's some list. I'm looking forward to hearing the commentary track from Kevin Jackson, who has been known to pop up on the Withnail Books Facebook page... Great also to see How to Get Ahead in Advertising getting its due.

The 'personalised' packaging is of course a gimmick, but a fun one. I've taken the opportunity to personalise mine to belong to one Montague H. Withnail. That £50 price tag is hefty, but not unreasonable I think considering what's included, and, to be fair, the considerable outlay Arrow must have made to simply get the negative scanned, let alone pull together everything else.

Sales of the limited edition have been fairly brisk since it was announced on Monday, so if you want a personalised one, I wouldn't leave it too long. There will be a further 2000 unpersonalised copies, but that's still only 4000 in total, and I'd wager there are plenty more Withnail fans than that who are going to want a copy of this edition under their Christmas tree...

Apparently this new remastered print will be coming back into cinemas in a month or two. How may theatrical re-releases has the film had now? I make it at least three!

What else? Well, since they were last mentioned on this blog, the Withnail Ales from the Cumbrian based Eden Brewery have been joined by some new brews: 'Scrubbers', an American Pale Ale, 'Black Jake', a porter with Seville Orange, and the soon-to-be-released chilli beer monster, 'Terrible C'. Chin chin indeed! I've tasted the first two, and they are first class.

And finally... this has been shared on various Withnail Facebook pages, but I wanted to post it here too. How's this for a brilliant on screen Withnail reference, spotted by keen-eyed fan Adam Peter Harris: in an episode of Endeavour, the young Morse drama on ITV, a brass office building plate was glimpsed...

Yup, that's Uncle Monty's first agent, Raymond Duck: "Four floors up on the Charing Cross Road and never a job at the top of them."

Whoever it was on the Endeavour production team that made that happen, hats off.