He was the man who inspired one of the greatest British film characters of all time: the louche, bohemian wastrel Withnail from Withnail and I – always ready with a memorable line and always in search of his next drink.
And now the never-before-seen diaries of Vivian MacKerrell, a down and out actor who was housemates with the film’s writer Bruce Robinson, are up for auction at Sotheby’s, with an estimated selling price of up to £18,000. In it they document some of the real-life events that made it into the film, from visiting the wolves at London Zoo to drinking lighter fluid.
“Vivian MacKerrell’s diaries are a wonderful discovery,” said Sotheby’s book specialist Gabriel Heaton. “They preserve a witty, acrid, unapologetic and melancholy voice, and describe a squalid bohemian lifestyle that is instantly recognisable to lovers of Withnail and I.”
The two diaries, which start in 1974 and cover the 18 months leading up to MacKerrell’s 30th birthday, begin when MacKerrell was living in Camden with director Robinson. Many of the cult scenes and outrageous lines from the hilarious and tragic film, in which two young struggling constantly inebriated thespians decamp from drinking their way around London to spend a weekend in the country, are heavily drawn from Robinson’s memories of this time.
MacKerrell, the son of a well-off Scottish accountant, really did live in mouse-ridden squalor, have a sad birthday party, take a short holiday to Gloucestershire (rather than the Lake District), and drink himself silly (”Drank some lighter fuel – got frantic & burst into tears,” he writes in one entry). And while the tremendous Withnail (played by Richard E. Grant) is not an exact copy of MacKerrell’s character, the similarities are stark.
“There isn’t a line of Viv’s in Withnail and I, but his horrible wine-stained tongue may well have spoken every word,” said Robinson in the introduction of Withnail and I: the Original Screenplay. “Without Viv, this story could never have been written.”
MacKerrell writes about Robinson starting a new work – the novel which would eventually become the film Withnail and I – in the diary entries now up for auction (“Kept up all night by B fixing bathroom and writing his novel,” wrote MacKerrell in one entry. In another: “After a pint… I read and corrected more of Withnail and I, his book, and when he came back we opened the bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé that L had put out in the windowbox to chill.”)
MacKerrell also documents his dreams, puts down his creative writing, drafts letters and there’s a list of songs. We meet a plethora of larger-than-life characters, and read about his terrifying drug and booze-fuelled antics.
And Withnail’s voice can be clearly heard in MacKerrell’s notes: “David asked B. for his rent today and mine too – je n'ai rien – hardly enough for a pint – if I had the bread I'd be drinking the finest wines oh Lord! Work! Work! Bed at 12:45 with the grisly thought of another day like today tomorrow.”
In another entry he writes: “…O Lord the march of time in its inexorable grey cloak – we’re into May now! No job, no chick and no bread – still nil Carborundum. And what is worse – as I peered into the dusty intestinal hall no Bunce [unemployment benefit].”
MacKerrell, who died in 1995 after a long battle with throat cancer, never did make it big. He had some roles on stage in the Sixties, even rubbing shoulders with Ian McKellen in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning in 1964, but his career failed to take off. Instead the actor, who Robinson described as the funniest person he had ever met, and another housemate described as “a splenetic wastrel of a fop” is remembered for his impact on the filmmaker.
In this way, the diary entries, which will be sold alongside photographs of MacKerrell from his personal archive, are a tribute to the pair’s friendship, a relationship which British film fans are eternally grateful for. Withnail and I has become a classic, with lines entering the lexicon including “We’ve gone on holiday by mistake”, “We want the finest wines available to humanity” and “I feel like a pig shat in my head”.
Just like the character Marwood, aka the ‘I’ in Withnail and I, Robinson left the home he shared with MacKerrell. The diaries, one of which MacKerrell titled The Country Gentleman’s Diary 1974, document this departure, as new people entered MacKerrell’s life and he continued his capers.
“Almost 40 years on, Withnail and I remains entrenched in our consciousness – the recent stage adaptation shows the strong appeal it still retains – and these diaries allow us to better understand and celebrate one of the real-life characters who inspired it,” said Heaton.
We imagine MacKerrell, who would attend Sotheby auctions with Robinson for the free wine (until the pair were banned by the doorman), may have taken great pleasure from the upcoming auction – not only is he star of the show, but his diaries come with a delicious estimated sale price that would have afforded the finest wines available to humanity.
