Johnny Depp Introduces a Withnail Screening!

Johnny Depp and Bruce Robinson on the set of The Rum Diary.

News just in (or just noticed by me at least) that Johnny Depp will be introducing — live and in person — a screening of Withnail and I on 22nd June as part of Julien Temple's Cineramageddon at the (already long sold out) Glastonbury Festival.

According to Screendaily the film "will be projected onto the biggest cinema screen in the UK with the nocturnal audience seated in seventy mutated vintage British and American cars, repurposed funfair rides and a Lear jet."

Nice.

Depp will also be introducing screenings of a couple of his favourites from his own career: The Libertine and Dead Man.

Of Withnail, he says, "no film has ever made me laugh more, or filled me with so much joy… and dread, than Withnail & I! For me, this is perfect cinema. As perfect as Chinatown, as The Godfather, as Time of the Gypsies. Genius.”

Yes, the actor who played Withnail is in Game of Thrones, but did you know that the actor who *inspired* Withnail is in it too?

"Withnail is Coming" squealed the viral Photoshop collages, when it was announced that Richard E. Grant was going to feature in Game of Thrones.

It has been previously noted on this blog (here) that the GoT show runners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss must be Withnail fans: giving Diana Rigg a line which included the words "perfumed ponce" is proof if proof be need be.

So it was only a matter of time before REG (as he is known to his fans) appeared in the show. He duly made it to the screen in last week's episode, playing - what else - an actor. It was a cough and a spit of a role, so one hopes he'll be featured again...

Also in the episode, reprising his recurring role as Aeron Greyjoy, was this chap:

That's noted English stage and screen actor Michael Feast. Many years ago, he shared a flat with a few other aspiring young actors. He's the long-haired one sitting in in the middle of this photo...

... and yes, standing on the left is Bruce Robinson. While it's been well-documented that the character of Withnail was based largely on another of the flatmates, Vivian MacKerrell (who's standing at the back in the middle), Feast had a large part to play in the genesis of Robinson's script, not least because it was he and Robinson who actually went on holiday by mistake.

As Feast told journalist Jeff Dawson:

“That whole Lake District fiasco, all of that stuff happened. Getting into the field with the bull; the search for fuel; tying plastic bags round our feet; the chicken thing. The cottage was a tip. The farmer — who did have a plaster on his leg — was just looking to make a bit of extra cash from idiot southerners. It was freezing. We were burning bits of furniture. We slept with our coats on. Even ‘We want the finest wines available to humanity’ was coined up there. The first night we blew all our money on a slap-up meal in one of those very upmarket hotels.”

Is it a coincidence that the show runners cast Feast on Game of Thrones? Surely not. Sadly, given that REG is in Braavos and Feast is in the Iron Islands, it's unlikely they'll share a scene, but we can hope...

Bruce Robinson's Original Unpublished Withnail Novel!

Before it was a script, Bruce Robinson's Withnail & I was a short novel. It was never published, and few people have ever had the chance to read it.

This week, the typescript is up for auction at Sothebys.

The catalogue entry for the lot is HERE. The estimate for the lot is £4,000-£6,000, but I have a feeling it may well top that quite comfortably.

The catalogue copy, reproduced here to add to the publicity for the sale (so please don't come after me Sothebys!) reads as follows. It opens with a quote from the manuscript, which includes, rather excitingly, some 'new' dialogue for Withnail...

"...We drove on into the suburbs of the suburbs: Withnail swilling from another bottle and pointing out areas of outstanding civic ugliness. 
'That's the reason of course, this country's never been invaded. It's too revolting. Even the Australian's wouldn't come here.'
He passed me the bottle and I drunk three huge mouthfuls, then hid it down by the handbrake. 
'Look, look,' he screamed, slurred with drink, gesturing towards a sign - "Accident Black Spot. Drive with extreme Care".
'These aren't accidents,' he wailed. 'They're throwing themselves into the road - gladly. Throwing 'em selves in into the road to get away from all this hideousness..."

THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE CULT CLASSIC. This short novel, which Robinson has described as "70%" autobiographical, was written in 1969-70, when its author was still living in the Camden Town house in which much of the debauched action takes place. Robinson had lived in the house since the mid-60s, when he and his housemates, including Vivian MacKerrell, who was  famously the basis for Withnail, and David Dundas, who wrote the film's music, were still drama students at the nearby Central School of Speech and Drama. Withnail took from MacKerrell his outrageous self-confidence and alcoholism; MacKerrell is said to have downed a bottle of lighter fluid (a tipple Withnail recommends as "a far superior drink to meths") and Robinson's diaries record other sources of booze for the desperate ("...Sotheby's was one of the best shows in town to drink brilliant wine and arsehole yourself absolutely free...", K. Jackson, Withnail and I (2004), p.28). The predatory Uncle Monty is said to have been based in part on Robinson's encounter with Franco Zeffirelli and Robinson even endured a "holiday" similar to the grim days at Crow Crag. 

In the mid-1970s Robinson lent this copy of his unpublished novel to another friend, also connected to the Central School and who had lived, briefly, at the Camden Town house in 1969. He wanted her comments on his depiction of the period and later gave her the typescript. In 1980 another copy of the unpublished novel reached executive producer Mody Schreiber, who commissioned Robinson to adapt it for the screen. It took several more years to get the funds in place and the film was made by George Harrison's company Handmade Films (formed to fund Monty Python's Life of Brian), after Harrison read the script on a transatlantic crossing. The film reached cinemas in 1987 and has, of course, since become a much-loved and much-quoted comic classic.

typescript, the first three pages original typescript, the remaining pages being contemporary photocopies, with many pages having revisions, often extensive, in black ink, further revisions in green fibre-tip and pencil, a few cancels in black fibre-tip and minor corrections in blue ball-point, title-page with Robinson's typed contact details (430 King's Road, Chelsea) and doodles by Robinson in black ink, 72 numbered pages, folio, [c.1970], two punch-holes held together with split-pins, occasional staining, nicks to title page, child's doodles in pencil

[with:] a single leaf torn from a magazine including a photograph of Robinson, MacKerrell, and housemates, outside their Camden Town house, late 1960s 

Here's the photo mentioned (Robinson's on the far left, Vivian MacKerrell is, I think, back row centre):

Photo from
http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2014/english-literature-history-childrens-books-illustrations-l15408/lot.64.html

... and here's that typescript page again, big enough to read it. As you'll see, it's mostly familiar from the script, with some extra detail... It's very much a working draft, with (presumably) Robinson's handwritten amendments and ideas for revisions. Obviously the person who ends up with this typescript will not also be buying the copyright (which will remain with Robinson), so I expect it's going to remain unpublished. Enjoy this little bit of it then...

Photo from
http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2014/english-literature-history-childrens-books-illustrations-l15408/lot.64.html

UPDATE: Turns out I was right: the typescript sold for just over £8,000! Details here.

Bruce Robinson and Withnail on the YouTube

Bruce Robinson is currently doing the rounds to publicise his recently published Jack the Ripper book, They All Love Jack. Having now read all 800-odd pages of it, I can heartily recommend it to anyone who is even slightly intrigued by it.

Even if you've never read a book about the Ripper, if you're reading this blog entry I can only assume you're a fan of Robinson's work, and if that's the case, you won't be disappointed: it's written in his inimitable style, and is by turns shocking, deeply researched, closely argued, and, to be frank, an extended and often hilarious rant. Bruce is *furious* about corruption in Victorian society, and he's not shy about telling you why.

Does he completely nail his Ripper suspect beyond reasonable doubt? Not really, in my opinion, but it's as good a theory as any recent research has uncovered, and there is very definitely something about the historical record of Michael Maybrick (or rather, as Bruce points out, the suspicious lack of it) which points to a cover-up of some sort.

It's well worth a read: and if you're in the market for a copy signed by the author, which comes with an original (and now extremely scarce) copy of the sheet music for the Maybrick-penned song which gave Robinson his title, you just have to ask...

Interviews with Bruce Robinson are always a pleasure to read or listen to. He's pretty much incapable of uttering a dull sentence. Here's a bunch of links that should keep you happy on the YouTube for a goodly while...

The Peculiar Memories of Bruce Robinson documentary:

Bruce on the Ruby Wax show:

Withnail and Us documentary:

Radio 4's The Reunion, about Withnail and I (really excellent, this):

Bruce with Kermode and Mayo, on The Rum Diary:

... and a few more general Withnail links:

5 lads visit the filming locations:

A visit to, and inside, Uncle Monty's cottage, Sleddale Hall (before it was bought by its present owner, who is now busy restoring the house):

... and finally this small piece of genius. If you've seen it, you'll have no problem seeing it again. And if you've never seen it, you're in for a treat.

(... those last three videos are marked as parts 2, 3 and 4. If anyone ever comes across a part 1, do please let me know!)

Bruce Robinson Has Finally Unmasked Jack the Ripper!

"It is either one of the most arcane conspiracy theories in British criminal history, or it’s the truth. By the time you’ve turned the last page, Robinson leaves you in no doubt that it’s the latter."

The Telegraph

"If he’s right, it’s the biggest cover-up in British history. If he’s wrong – well, it’s still a bloody good read."

The Guardian

After at least fifteen years of research and writing Withnail and I creator Bruce Robinson's magnum opus They All Love Jack: Busting the Ripper is nearly upon us, and the media campaign has begun.

As revealed on this blog many months ago, Robinson's culprit is the singer/songwriter Stephen Adams, aka Michael Maybrick, pictured above. You can bring yourself up to speed reading the previous blog posts about Robinson's adventures in Ripperland HERE and HERE.

Bruce was interviewed at his house by reporter Nicola Stanbridge on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning (at about 8.20, if you want to find it on the iPlayer listen again), and there's a huge article about the book and its author in today's Telegraph, which you can read HERE.

Meanwhile the first review is in, from the Grauniad, which concludes: "If he’s right, it’s the biggest cover-up in British history. If he’s wrong – well, it’s still a bloody good read." You can read the full review HERE.

Robinson is making several appearances over the next few weeks to talk about the book. Click below for more details of:

An event in London in conversation with Will Self

An appearance at the Cheltenham Literary Festival

An appearance in Leeds, coupled with a screening of a certain film, which he will introduce...

Finally, you can buy the book here, but of course you should be ordering it from your local independent bookshop.

UPDATE:
Another stop on Robinson's book tour, this time in Bath.

A review of the book by Craig Brown, who doesn't like it. But it's in the Daily Mail, so what do you expect?

A long Sunday Times feature/interview (though it's behind a paywall).

A Wall Street Journal article.

A long article in GQ.

Bruce Robinson's Jack the Ripper Suspect Revealed!

Last week there was a flurry of excitement round these parts with the news that Withnail and I creator Bruce Robinson's long-awaited non-fiction magnum opus about Jack the Ripper was finally scheduled for release.

In this interview with the Independent about the forthcoming They All Love Jack: Busting the Ripper (pre-order it here folks!) Bruce was understandably not about to reveal the identity of his suspect. As the interviewer Richard Jinman points out, "his publisher wouldn't thank him if he did."

Well, sorry HarperCollins, but I can confirm who it is. (Look away now if you don't want to be spoiled). 

First off though, let's see what Bruce did say in the interview. He's pretty damn sure he's got his man:

“I say in the introduction to the book that this isn’t a theory, it’s an explanation – and I sincerely believe it is. I’m not a man given to kidding himself – I wouldn’t have spent this long working on it unless I was pretty damn sure of it.”

“It’s much more complicated than some weird freak living in a lair and coming out [to kill] for no apparent reason. It ain’t like that at all.”

“He was a prick – a psychopathic prick. Somehow he’s managed to accrue this almost heroic aura, but I have no time for that. I go after the bastard.”

And if Ripperologists tell him he's wrong? “It would only be right and expected. But the book is extremely well sourced. If they want to say that’s bollocks they’ll have to say your source is bollocks.”

So who is it?

It's actually not a secret. Robinson himself revealed the identity of his Ripper suspect in an interview with the Telegraph in 1998. I've only just become aware of it, but it's still quietly sitting on the web for all to read here. It's just a snippet, in a literary diary/gossip column by 'Noggs':

***

NOGGS tags along as a somewhat hungover Bruce Robinson - the mercurial creator of the film "Withnail & I" and, more recently, the novel The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman - goes on a spending spree for antiquarian books. "I'm in a mood for book-buying, Noggs," snarls Robinson, his handsome nostrils flaring as he picks up the scent of worn calf and vellum. Booksellers stand as still as spiders as they watch him fly about their shop, none wanting to say a word that might break the buying spell.

Later, when we repair to a pub to recuperate, Robinson explains why he has been specifically hunting for Victorian true-crime books. "I am the only person on earth who knows the true identity of Jack the Ripper," he whispers. Noggs politely observes that he himself has a foolproof technique for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, but Robinson is adamant. "His name is Stephen Adams - real name Michael Maybrick - who was quite a famous musician of the 1880s," he tells me. "He died in 1913, the Mayor of Rill [sic, should be Ryde] on the Isle of Wight." And won't Noggs be spoiling Robinson's secret if he spills the blood-soaked beans in his humble column? "Not at all," cries my companion magnanimously. "I shall be glad to establish the provenance."

***

So who is Michael Maybrick, what's his connection with a previously fancied Ripper suspect, and how did Bruce Robinson get mixed up in Ripperology in the first place? You can read the story so far in this post.  

One further nugget of proof if proof be need be (as they used to say in The Day Today) is that, as Mark Ramsden points out in this excellent blog post, Robinson's book is named after one of Stephen Adams/James Maybrick's songs! Here's an old sheet music cover he found to prove it...

It's about how girls love a sailor (Jack Tar), and it came out before the Ripper murders in 1888, but still, you can see why Robinson couldn't resist it for a title.

All will become clear when the book is finally published this autumn (unless the publication date slips again, as it has many times before...). There is at least now a blurb for the book online, which describes it as:

"A literary high-wire act reminiscent of Tom Wolfe or Hunter S. Thompson, it is an expressionistic journey through the cesspools of late-Victorian society, a phantasmagoria of highly placed villains, hypocrites and institutionalised corruption."

Well I don't know about you, but I'm sold!

Bruce Robinson Resurfaces! Jack the Ripper is coming...

Photo sourced here

The Independent on Sunday has a brief new interview with Bruce Robinson today, which you can (and should) read in full here.

In it, he confirms that his decades-in-the-writing non-fiction book about Jack the Ripper is finally being published, this September. You can pre-order it here. You can read more about the project, and SPOILERS a *possible* candidate for the person Robinson is going to unveil as the Ripper, in my previous blog entry here (which is one of the most-read posts this website has ever published...).

Bruce sounds on good form, and gives good quote, as always. The author of the piece mentions that the Robinson household is hard to find nestling in its remote valley in the Wales borders, but that doesn't seem to have put off hardcore fans making a pilgrimage. Bruce says:

“I found a guy drinking my vintage port in the kitchen at 7am a few days ago. This guy put down a whole bottle of port, ate a bowl of cornflakes and fucked off. I still don’t know who he was.”

An Actual Bottle From Uncle Monty's Sensational Cellar: The Ultimate Withnail Collectible?

Anno's Africa is "is a UK based charity that offers an alternative, arts education to orphans and vulnerable children in some of Africa’s most desperately deprived city slums." You can visit their website and donate to this most worthy cause here. 

I'm mentioning them because last week they auctioned off a bunch of 'celebrity' items on eBay. A whopping £42,000 was raised in total, thanks in no small part to Jane Birkin's signed Hermes bag (£19,900) and BenCum's Spencer Hart suit from Sherlock (£7,100). But the item that caught my eye was this:

"A genuine Haut Brion '53 wine bottle with original label, but filled with 'prop' wine (Ribena or equivalent) as used as a prop in cult movie WITHNAIL AND I – as part of Uncle Monty's wine cellar – and not uncorked by Uncle Monty! 

The label is signed on the left hand side by the movie's writer and director Bruce Robinson, and on the right hand side he has written 'Withnail & I 1986'."

I'll admit I would have dearly loved to have won this (what a centrepiece for the Withnail shrine in the Little Shop!); alas the winning bid of £481.89 was somewhat out of my price range. Still, at that price I'm sure it's gone to a good home, where it will be treated with the respect and love it deserves, and carefully handed down to generation upon generation in the future...

Incidentally, you can buy a bottle of Haut-Brion '53 that still has the actual wine in it for slightly less than £481.89 here, but only if you buy a whole case of it. For five and a half grand.

Anyway, here are some more photos of this wonderful piece of Withnail history, as modelled by Mr Robinson himself... Chin chin!

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.

Bruce Robinson Not Funny: Official

So, a customer who happily bought a first edition copy of Bruce Robinson's novel The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman last week brought it back, wanting a refund. "It's full of four letter words!" he said, incredulously.

"The front flap says it is 'excruciatingly funny', and that's not true," he continued. "I read the first few pages, and they weren't funny, and I looked at a few pages later on, and they weren't funny either."

After a few beats, I realised he was deadly serious. We had a short chat about how his thoughts on the book were a matter of opinion, rather than a quantifiable fact, and how, as a secondhand bookshop, books tended to be sold as seen with no refunds, especially if the only reason was because he thought it wasn't funny.

"But it isn't funny," he countered, in exactly the same kind of voice Nigel Tufnell used when he said, "But it goes up to eleven."

By now the breathtaking audacity of the man had won me over, and I decided to give him his money back (after all, Withnail Books can never have enough first edition copies of Thomas Penman, and if I hadn't, he'd still be standing there now).

The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman *is* excruciatingly funny, in my opinion, though it most certainly is full of four letter words, and many equally rude words with more letters than that, all used to wonderful effect. As reviewer 'A Reader' on Amazon opines:

Bruce Robinson's mastery of descriptive language was so delicious I found myself reading whole paragraphs aloud, to no one in particular, just to hear the words. Selections should be publicly read on Mr. Robinson's birthday by the best British voices available.

Hear, hear. If you're not familiar with the book and want to read a short review, here's what a certain Mr Simon Pegg thinks of it (in brief, he says it's "both moving and side-splittingly hilarious").

It was Robinson's first (and to date only) novel, and it caused quite a splash when it was published in 1998, not only because of the Withnail connection, but thanks to Bloomsbury's fantastic cover design.

After a hardcover which included typography, they took the gutsy decision to go entirely type-free on the cover of the paperback, and just let the utterly perfect photograph (by Matt Harris) do all the work.

Once seen, never forgotten. And as someone who regularly sells copies of the book that I leave face out, I can vouch for its efficacy.

Bruce Robinson is currently trying to get a film version of Thomas Penman off the ground. What a shame this kid is now too old, as he'd be worth casting if only to use this image on the film poster as well.

Withnail and I News Round-Up: Here Hare Beer, Screening at Crow Crag and the Amazing Wall O' Withnail

Readers of the Withnail Books Facebook Page may have seen mention of some or all of the following, but for blog followers and casual googlers, here's a selection of Withnail-related items of note from the last couple of months or so.

The breaking news is that Picnic Cinema have announced the dates for the 2014 screenings of a certain film in the courtyard of Uncle Monty's cottage itself, Crow Crag (aka Sleddale Hall, near Shap, not far from Penrith). There are three nights this year: July 3, 4 and 5. The details are here, though you'll have to subscribe to be informed when the tickets actually go on sale... and when they do, with only 300 in total, they will probably disappear within 24 hours. This amazing event is now in its third year, and its popularity looks like it will continue to grow exponentially. If you have no bloody idea what I'm on about, you can have a read of this, and watch a video of last year's event here.

No doubt more than 'a few ales' will be consumed at Crow Crag this summer, and the top choice has to be Eden Brewery's new Withn'Ales. Yes, Withnail and I-inspired beer has arrived:

As you can see from the ABVs, these are serious beers for serious drinkers! That 9.1% is not a typo. And having tried them, I can confirm that they are indeed a far superior drink to meths. For me, Here Hare Beer wins on taste, and name. RLF, in case you were wondering, stands for Ronson Lighter Fluid (or Really Lovely Framboise). The Eden Brewery's website is currently under construction, but you can follow them on Facebook. The Withn'Ales are available locally (try the Moo Bar in Penrith) and via mail order, I believe.

Last, but certainly not least, feast your eyes on the Wall O' Withnail:

A US-based Withnail fan has taken it upon themselves to collect examples of the vintage items seen in the background in the film. For example, a Wood & Sons coffee pot seen in Withnail's kitchen...

... or the Black and White Whisky Dogs seen in the Crow:

For more (much more) click on over to the Wall O' Withnail blog. This truly wonderful endeavour has rightly already been tweeted about by Richard E. Grant, and even received the seal of approval from Bruce Robinson himself: in a move which practically defines the term 'a class act', he sent the blogger a signed Withnail poster, on which he also wrote 'You are quite possibly insane.' (You can see it here.)

I am simultaneously jealous that I didn't have the same idea earlier, and relieved that I didn't have the same idea earlier, as if I had, I would be the one currently searching for obscure items on eBay. Though I have discovered that the Jesse Tait 'Spanish Garden' design crockery, as seen amongst the 'matter' in Withnail's kitchen, is the same design I grew up eating off every day.

Wall O' is still searching for many items, so please help if you can. A possible avenue of enquiry would be to hunt down and pick the brains/memories of the original film's production designer Michael Pickwoad, Art Director Henry Harris or even the prop buyer Leith Boler. One of these people might remember which prop houses, if any, were used to supply set decoration. You never know, they could be worth a visit. For example, when the makers of  the 'creation of Doctor Who' docudrama An Adventure in Time and Space were busy recreating the original Tardis control room set, they went to a London prop house with some reference photos from the first episode. They were especially keen to find as close a match as possible to the brass columns which appeared either side of the doors. "What, those ones over there?" said the bloke at the prop house, pointing to the very same columns they had hired out to the BBC back in 1963. So they hired them again...

So, who knows what 'original' Withnail items are sitting around in prop stores as I type...

Alas, I don't have any examples of, let alone actual original vintage Withnail props, though the Little Shop does feature a mini shrine to the film, pictured at the top of this post. The sacred object is the 'With Nail', a lovely old nail found lying on the floor during a pilgrimage to Crow Crag/Sleddale Hall, back in the days when it was in a sad, semi-derelict state (it's now a privately owned house, of course). Here it is in close-up. Chin chin!

Jack The Ripper: Has Withnail's Creator Bruce Robinson Really Discovered Proof Of His Identity, By Mistake?

Bruce Robinson (centre). Photo by Murray Close. www.murrayclose.com

It'll come as no big surprise that round these parts we're interested in whatever Bruce Robinson, best known as the writer and director of Withnail and I, is up to. For many years, the answer has been, at least in public, 'not much'. He resurfaced in 2011 with The Rum Diary, a film of Hunter S. Thompson's novel which its producer/star Johnny Depp persuaded Bruce to adapt and direct, and one suspects he still works as an uncredited script doctor on various films, but the lion's share of his time for the past decade and more has been taken up with a massive research project.

Bruce Robinson has discovered the identity of Jack the Ripper, and he's been busy writing the Ripper book to end all Ripper books.

As long ago as 2003, he was telling the Daily Express: "The 'mystery' is complete rubbish. They knew and I know exactly who the killer was. By 1892 they knew his name unequivocally. My book has taken four years and it will burst the mystery open once and for all. It's the dirtiest political story I've ever come across. The whole thing is a juggernaut of lies. The mystery is a complete invention – there isn't one. When my book comes out people will either think I'm completely barmy or be appalled at how craven and cynical people could be." 

Fast forward to 2011, and Robinson started mentioning the project in interviews to tie in with the release of The Rum Diary, including this one: "I’ve been working for 14 years on the same book, about the Whitechapel murderer, which is kind of an obsessive passion of mine at the moment. But the problem is, I spent half a million pounds on the research of this book and it’s unbelievably expensive because you can’t just walk into the Metropolitan Police and say: “Okay, get it all out, come on I want to see it…” Because all of those, we remember very well the dodgy dossier over Iraq… well, exactly the same thing applies to Jack the Ripper, all the Metropolitan Police files are all completely faked, they’re all complete bollocks all of them, so it’s a difficult area to be working in. But it’ll take me another two years to finish that."

Around the same time, Will Self visited Robinson's home, and reported that an entire converted barn had been given over to a 'Ripper Research Unit', "complete with groaning shelves, bursting filing cabinets and a brace of desks." Though the manuscript had reached 800 pages, Bruce was not ready to publish: "I need it locked down. I don’t want there to be any doubts expressed at all, and for that I need to do more research — and that costs."

Since then, there has been no sign of the book. The nearest thing to an announced publication date was this mention in his Random House author bio here: 'For a dozen years he's been working on a history of the Whitechapel Murders which he hopes to publish in 2013 to coincide with the centenary of 'Jack the Ripper's' death...'

Evidently, his hopes to publish in 2013 have been dashed, unless there's a Morrissey-style last-minute reveal to come in the next month. Somehow I doubt it. But wait, that little mention is actually a very tantalising sentence: 'to coincide with the centenary of Jack the Ripper's death'. The murders took place in 1888, and of course the Ripper has never been identified... but Bruce's candidate evidently lived on until 1913.

So who is it, who has Bruce Robinson unmasked, and how did a jobbing film writer/director get caught up in Ripperology in the first place?

From what I can piece together, the chronology goes something like this. 

Back in 1993, The Diary of Jack the Ripper was published, in a flurry of worldwide publicity. The story of the diary, purported to be by Liverpool cotton merchant James Maybrick, its discovery, and the vehement arguments about its veracity which ensued could (and have) take up several books. The bottom line is that even the Ripperologists who think it's a fake don't believe the guy who 'discovered' it, and later claimed he wrote it, actually had anything to do with its creation, but they don't have an answer for who did fake it. (It's a long and tortuous tale, brilliantly told in this book.)

But back to Bruce Robinson. UK copies of The Diary of Jack the Ripper are prefaced by this quote:

"If this Diary is a modern forgery — which I am sure that it is not — and if I were the faker, then I would consider it to have been the summit of my literary achievement." — Bruce Robinson, Oscar nominee and scriptwriter of The Killing Fields and Withnail and I.

So, Bruce was evidently impressed by the diary (though you'll note that he leaves open the possibility that it is an old forgery), enough to lend his name to a nice puff quote. Not surprising then that he was soon reportedly attached to a film version of the book, called Battlecrease (the name of Maybrick's Liverpool house). The diary movie was hot property for a while, and there was talk of Anthony Hopkins playing Maybrick, but after several years in development, the Johnny Depp Ripper film From Hell came along, and killed off any chance Battlecrease had of reaching the screen.

By this time however, we are to assume, Robinson had uncovered something in his research for the film which he wanted to continue pursuing, even if it was going to take him a decade or more, not to mention half a million quid of his own money.

Working with the veteran Ripper writer Keith Skinner, his attention turned (according to a poster on the thread here) to James Maybrick's brother, Michael, a popular singer and composer of the day who also went by the name Stephen Adams. In 1893, at the peak of his success, Michael married his housekeeper, and retired to the Isle of Wight. "By 1892 they knew his name unequivocally," Robinson said. Hmmm. Add in the facts that Michael was a very high-up Freemason, and that he died in 1913 (when Robinson has already revealed his candidate died) then it's hardly proof if proof be need be... but could this be the face of Jack the Ripper?

Here's hoping that one day soon, Bruce Robinson's book is finally published. Whatever his conclusions, one thing's for certain: it'll be brilliantly written. It's also going to be very, very long. In 2008, I attended a recording of Radio 4's The Reunion, celebrating Withnail, at the NFT. Afterwards, I took the opportunity to get the great man's autograph, and ask him when we were going to see his Jack the Ripper magnum opus. "Few more years yet," he said with a big grin, holding up his thumb and forefinger several inches apart. "The fucker's this thick!"

UPDATE SEPTEMBER 2014:
Well, a book called The Name of the Ripper: One Man's Obsessive Quest to Discover the Identity of History's Most Notorious Serial Killer has appeared for preorder on Amazon. It's coming out in April 2015. Bated breath doesn't cover it.


UPDATE FEBRUARY 2015:
No doubt to avoid confusion with the similarly titled 2014 release Naming Jack the Ripper, Robinson's book appears to have undergone a name-change to They All Love Jack: Busting the Ripper. The publication date has also slipped to September 2015...

UPDATE JUNE 2015:

Confirmation that Michael Maybrick *is* Robinson's suspect: read more here.

... and the blurb for the book has been released. It just makes me even more intrigued... 

The iconoclastic writer and director of the revered classic Withnail & I—"The funniest British film of all time" (Esquire)—returns to London in a decade-long examination of the most provocative murder investigation in British history, and finally solves the identity of the killer known as "Jack the Ripper."

In a literary high-wire act reminiscent of both Hunter S. Thompson and Errol Morris, Bruce Robinson offers a radical reinterpretation of Jack the Ripper, contending that he was not the madman of common legend, but the vile manifestation of the Victorian Age's moral bankruptcy.

In exploring the case of Jack the Ripper, Robison goes beyond the who that has obsessed countless others and focuses on the why. He asserts that any "gentlemen" that walked above the fetid gutters of London, the nineteenth century's most depraved city, often harbored proclivities both violent and taboo—yearnings that went entirely unpunished, especially if he also bore royal connections. The story of Jack the Ripper hinges on accounts that were printed and distributed throughout history by the same murderous miscreants who frequented the East End of her Majesty's London, wiping the fetid muck from their boots when they once again reached the marble floors of society's finest homes.

Supported by primary sources and illustrated with 75 to 100 black and white photographs, this breathtaking work of cultural history dismisses the theories of previous "Ripperologists." A Robinson persuasively makes clear with his unique brilliance, The Ripper was far from a poor resident of Whitechapel . . . he was a way of life.


And here's another version from the Harper UK site...

For over a hundred years, ‘the mystery of Jack the Ripper’ has been a source of unparalleled fascination and horror, spawning an army of obsessive theorists, and endless volumes purporting finally to reveal the identity of the brutal murderer who terrorised Victorian England.

But what if there was never really any ‘mystery’ at all? What if the Ripper was always hiding in plain sight, deliberately leaving a trail of clues to his identity for anyone who cared to look, while cynically mocking those who were supposedly attempting to bring him to justice?

In THEY ALL LOVE JACK, the award-winning film director and screenwriter Bruce Robinson exposes the cover-up that enabled one of history’s most notorious serial killers to remain at large. More than twelve years in the writing, this is much more than a radical reinterpretation of the Jack the Ripper legend, and an enthralling hunt for the killer. A literary high-wire act reminiscent of Tom Wolfe or Hunter S. Thompson, it is an expressionistic journey through the cesspools of late-Victorian society, a phantasmagoria of highly placed villains, hypocrites and institutionalised corruption.

Polemic, forensic investigation, panoramic portrait of an age, underpinned by deep scholarship and delivered in Robinson’s inimitably vivid and scabrous prose, THEY ALL LOVE JACK is an absolutely riveting and unique book, demolishing the theories of generations of self-appointed experts – the so-called ‘Ripperologists’ – to make clear, at last, who really did it; and more importantly, how he managed to get away with it for so long.