I had never thought of Bruce Robinson’s Withnail and I as being theatre-infused. Too grime-groaning for that, what with rats in the oven, plastic bags on feet, the swigging of lighter fuel. Oh, and the carrot fixation: not only the adoration of the root vegetable (when “firm”) by Withnail’s sexually avid uncle, but the celebrated 12-skin spliff called “the Camberwell carrot”.
Yet Sean Foley’s production of Robinson’s new adaptation points up the original’s strong thespian thread. It is not only that the two non-heroes are out-of-work actors. The script nods to Chekhov, and bristles with quotes from Hamlet. Director and writer emphasise the theatricality by supplying an electric episode in which the two men duel around their damp cottage as Hamlet and Laertes. The very name Withnail could have been invented for a minor Shakespearean clown.
