I've just watched the 20th anniversary DVD of Withnail And I and it was pretty much worth the buy.
The picture quality of the film itself is a lot better than the DVD I've owned for the last 5 years or so and the features are still there with a few new additional ones.
I also discovered a soundtrack CD featuring some of David Dundas's own compositions for the film which I'd say was one of the key things he worked on in between composing the Channel 4 ident, and the ITV Coporate Identity theme in 1989.
The film itself is essentially two out of work actors, Withnail and Marwood (I) who want to escape to the country and a house in Penrith owned by their gay uncle Monty. However they know nothing about the country and there ignorance owns them no favour from the locals, especially the poacher who threatens to hunt them down.
They then get a visit from Monty but the reason he arrived was to try and get the attention of Marwood as Withnail said that he was gay, when talking to Monty in private.
When Monty tries to approach Marwood, he is furious with Withnail for bribing Monty into letting them have the cottage on the basis that "I" is gay but luckily for him he receives an audition and gets a lead role back in London which results in the two saying goodbye.
One of the special features on the DVD is the documentary "Withnail And Us" originally transmitted as part of Channel 4's Withnail Weekend in July 1999.
The reason I remember it well is because despite not seeing the film until about four years later, it was the same weekend as when T4 held their "Dawson's Creek Day" which was a whole day full of programmes between 10am and 9pm with the centerpiece being the final 3 episodes of Dawson's Creek being scheduled during the afternoon.
I've still got it on tape with all the links featuring Ben, Dermot and Margharita presenting on location from Windsor Castle.
Anyway, the Withnail documentary contains interviews with director Bruce Robinson and the main cast members and a few fans of the film.
The only "celebrities" (although I doubt they would like to be referred that way) interviewed are Adam and Joe who were fans of the film, and it seems that Dick and Dom were fans as well as influences from the film ended up in their Saturday morning show.
One example being Ian Kirkby's character "Raymond Duck" who later became "Raymond Farmer" and I'm sure fans of the film will know the reason why.
There's also a more in depth interview with Bruce Robinson recorded specially for the DVD where he goes into more depth about how Denis O'Brien, one of the bosses at Handmade Films wanted to shut the film down because he thought it wasn't funny.
The reason being was that he worked on two of the Monty Python films made by the company and thought he knew about comedy.
He said that it should have been shot with 5K lamps as opposed to natural light, and that Richard E Grant should have been more flamboyant a la Kenneth Williams.
He also thought that the character of Monty, played by Richard Griffiths should have been more of a John Inman caricature and that and many other reasons prompted Bruce to nearly walk off from the film, two days after shooting started.
To make things even worse, Handmade wouldn't fund the film so Bruce ended up having to pay £30,000 to produce it and to this day he still has resentment for the company.
Overall it's a very interesting insight into it all.
Good night.
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