Before Richard E Grant’s Withnail, there was Kenneth More’s Chick Byrd. In Alvin Rakoff’s 1964 British drama, Byrd is an out-of-work actor whose breezy, cynical exuberance masks increasing terror of permanent unemployment and, like Withnail, he is desperate for his agent to call, stunned by his flatmate booking a glamorous film job and stuck living in a scuzzy boarding house in Camden Town (although exteriors were shot in Paddington).
After being fired from his job in provincial rep, Chick has come back down to London to try his luck, meeting up with all the old faces, the familiar parade of ageing thespian losers hanging round West End pubs and cafes during the day and mooching desolately past theatres with huge hoardings showing rave reviews for successful actors. Jaded, nasty agent Tommy Morris (Dennis Price) has no time for Chick, and neither does the raffish Prout (Frank Finlay), while slippery actor Rutherford (Cecil Parker) owes him money. But he meets up with old flame Judy (Billie Whitelaw) and a new one, Fay (played by More’s future wife Angela Douglas). And then, when something terrible happens to his pal Jack Lavery (Alan Dobie), Chick makes an awful decision which gets him a kind of fame and fortune, at a price.
