Richard E Grant interview: 'The anarchic spirit is the basis of comedy - it's timeless'

The livewire Withnail and I actor has made a new series on the Ealing comedies. Here he talks to James Rampton about what we can expect

English actor, screenwriter and director Richard E Grant (AFP/Getty)

Richard E Grant has made a new series on Ealing comedies called, er, Richard E Grant on Ealing Comedies. So, we ask the actor, whose company is as sparkly and intoxicating as the alcohol that he famously eschews, would the perennially endearing post-war film series work in today’s more cynical climate?

“Yes,” replies the 59-year-old actor, who was born and bred in Swaziland. “Look at Passport to Pimlico, which deals with a group of Londoners who secede from Great Britain and become Burgundians for a short period of time. There has to be the potential for a Brexit comedy like that. In fact, I’m sure more than one is being written as we speak.

“Michael Gove’s activities in themselves were hilarious. To think that he imagined he could have stabbed everyone in the back and still become prime minister is very funny. Then we got Theresa May as Prime Minister who wreaked vengeance and got rid of all the old guard.”

Next up, Grant carries on: “She made Boris Johnson Foreign Secretary after he had insulted everybody on the planet. It’s all in print, so he can’t claim he didn’t say it. He did. ‘You did, Blanche’. Hilarious. Does that answer your question?” It does indeed.

Talking to The Independent in the very appropriate surroundings of the Regent Street Cinema in central London – known as the birthplace of British cinema after the Lumiere Brothers screened the country’s first moving pictures there in 1896 – Grant is hitting his rhetorical stride now. “When I was growing up in Swaziland, there was no freedom of speech, and there is still no freedom of speech there.

”We had Marxist Mozambique on one side and Apartheid South Africa on the other, and in the middle was the absolute monarchy in Swaziland. The fact that we live in the UK, a country where I can sit here and say what I just said, is brilliant. I love that. I would defend it to my last breath, even if you violently disagreed with me.”

Richard E Grant on Ealing Comedies, a new three-part series that begins at 7pm on UKTV Gold this Sunday, is an unexpected but delightful merger of two national institutions. Both exhibit a keen wit and the ability to nail the essential eccentricity of the British character.

Dressed in white tennis shoes without socks and an aquamarine shirt and trouser combo that matches his striking blue eyes, Grant is a live wire who, if he were plugged into them, could surely power the Regent Street Christmas lights on his own.

He is typically lively, for instance, on the subject of how he landed the gig of presenting this series in the first place. “How did I get this job? Because Martin Clunes was unavailable. I don’t know who turned it down before I got it. Who is more expensive than me?”

The series, which also features contributions from Michael Palin, Jonathan Ross, Peter Capaldi, Dame Diana Rigg and Paul Whitehouse, traces the history of the studio responsible for some of our greatest post-war comedies, including the aforementioned Passport to Pimlico, Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Lavender Hill Mob, Whisky Galore!, The Titfield Thunderbolt, The Ladykillers and The Man in the White Suit. Produced in an astoundingly fertile period between 1947 and 1958, these movies are as quintessentially British as talking about the weather.

Grant, who has also starred in The Portrait of a Lady, The Player and Gosford Park, contends that the anti-establishment Ealing films epitomise the offbeat British sense of humour. “In the same way that the French are known for fashion and food, comedy is the thing that seems to be the signature of British culture.

“When I travel abroad doing a hotel series, which is on another channel that I won’t mention, time and again people come up to me and say, ‘The British sense of humour makes us so happy’. They then tell you a joke and you have to squeeze your nuts to try and get a laugh out.”

The actor, who has just finished filming on Wolverine 3, continues, “That sense of humour is in the DNA of Ealing films. They have an anarchic spirit, a sod-you attitude. They cock a snook to the whole lot of them.

”Class is the basis of almost all British comedy. In Fawlty Towers, for example, John Cleese is thumbing his nose at everybody. That anarchic spirit is the common denominator, even if times and fashions have changed.”

Grant, who is married to the voice coach Joan Washington and has a daughter and a stepson, thinks their very British sense of humour is one of the major reasons why Ealing comedies have lasted so well. “They have stood the test of time.

“They feel timeless. They have really good stories, and they were made without any fuss or reliance on special effects. They have that very British thing that the comedy comes out of the wit and the character. I think they’re unique in world cinema, although I may be stitching myself up here!”

Because of their unique quality, Grant feels there is no need to remake the original comedies, which were all overseen by the head of Ealing Studios, Sir Michael Balcon. “Would I consider appearing in a remake? Have you seen the remakes of Alfie, Get Carter or Sleuth? Remaking films is not a good idea, but of course I’m always available for employment!”

We cannot leave without touching on Grant’s most celebrated performance. He is still best known for his timelessly brilliant role as a drunken actor in Bruce Robinson’s enduringly popular 1987 film, Withnail and I.

So does the actor think that movie could have been an Ealing comedy? “Yes, because it deals with failure and the sense of us against them and has that anarchic spirit that is like Ealing.”

Richard E Grant in much-loved 1987 film Withnail and I

Nearly 30 years on, the film’s popularity shows no sign of waning. Indeed, students all over the country still very enthusiastically play the “Withnail Drinking Game” in which, as they watch the movie, they try to match the character drink for drink and usually last about 15 minutes before collapsing in a heap.

“What I’m amazed by is that I still get tweets, emails and Instagrams on a daily basis about the film,” Grant says, almost whistling in astonishment.

“I’m stopped every day on the Tube by people quoting from the film. Withnail and I was made 30 years ago next summer, and teenagers still identify with it today. That’s entirely down to Bruce Robinson’s extraordinary script.”

Displaying once more a sense of humour as sharp as the arrow with which Louis Mazzini (played by Dennis Price) finishes off Lady Agatha D'Ascoyne (Sir Alec Guinness) in Kind Hearts and Coronets, Grant makes a final connection between Withnail and I and Ealing comedies. “I’ve suddenly been struck by the fact that if Sir Michael Balcon’s grandson, Daniel Day-Lewis, had accepted the role of Withnail, I wouldn’t be sitting here now. I know that. You only get one break in your life. Mercifully, Daniel turned Withnail down to do The Unbearable Lightness of Being instead.

“So when I finally worked with Daniel on Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence, I’ve prostrated myself in front of him in his Winnebago and said, ‘Thank you, Daniel’. He very graciously replied, ‘Arise, my boy’.”

‘Richard E Grant on Ealing Comedies’ is on UKTV Gold at 7pm this Sunday