Vivian MacKerrell | Diaries of the actor who inspired the character of "Withnail", 1974-75, with related photographs

Vivian MacKerrell

A collection of diaries and related material, comprising:

i) The Country Gentlemen's Diary 1974, pre-printed with one week per opening, filled with detailed daily entries beginning 26 January ("...Lennie came over & I drank some lighter fuel - got frantic & burst into tears - walk in the park & bed at 5AM..."), also with entries recording dreams, lists of songs, and miscellaneous notes, c.121 pages of handwritten text, in blue ink, black ink, and pencil, 8vo (215 x 155mm), blue cloth, binding worn

ii) Personal diary, with regular entries from 14 January to 20 May 1975 ("The diary ends here for the moment as I gradually began to feel better and decided to go up to Islay ..."), with a brief postscript on his visit to Islay, c.176 pages, plus blanks, in black ink and blue ink, 8vo (210 x 153mm), blue cloth

iii) Notebook, with fragments of creative writing in prose, occasional diary entries (26-30 March 1973), draft letters, and other notes, 41 pages, plus blanks, in black, blue and green ink, and pencil, 8vo (200 x 165mm), grey patterned boards

iv-viii) Five photographs of McKerrell: head and shoulders portrait, 204 x 250mm; head and shoulders portrait, 140 x 95mm, studio stamp on the reverse (Charles Domec-Carre of Brixton Hill); quarter-length profile portrait in theatrical costume, 230 x 90mm; sheet of 12 contact prints from a studio session, 251 x 202mm; all photographs creased and with abrasions to reverse where removed from an album

“There isn’t a line of Viv’s in Withnail and I, but his horrible wine-stained tongue may well have spoken every word. Without Viv, this story could never have been written […] Vivian and I lived Withnail and I for a long time before that weird thing happened in my head, and I had to sit at the kitchen table and try to write it down.” (Bruce Robinson, Introduction to Withnail and I: the Original Screenplay, p.viii-ix)

“…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! Fuck – I had a fag and coffee and hastened out to a blustery but hazily sunny day…” (Vivian MacKerrell, diary entry, 2 May 1975)

THE DIARIES OF THE MAN WHO WAS A KEY INSPIRATION OF THE CHARACTER OF WITHNAIL, ONE OF THE GREATEST COMIC CREATIONS OF MODERN BRITISH CINEMA. Withnail and I, released in 1987, launched the career of Richard E. Grant and has become a beloved cult classic, loaded with a host of familiar lines and tropes – from Withnail’s demand for the finest wines known to humanity to the Camberwell Carrot. It is also substantially autobiographical. The writer and director Bruce Robinson drew heavily on his own experience as a young actor, when he shared a squalid house and bohemian lifestyle with Vivian MacKerrell (1944-95), a witty, seemingly self-confident and permanently unemployed young actor with a prodigious appetite for drink and drugs (“...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...” 27th February 1974). These diaries, which have never before been seen beyond MacKerrell’s most intimate circle, allow us to hear the original caustic, rebarbative, self-pitying, debauched and hilariously funny voice that inspired Withnail.

The diaries provide a vivid record of MacKerrell’s life at 127 Albert Street, Camden Town, over a period of approximately 18 months. He was living in foetid squalor (“…I had intended to kip on the couch and nearly away – when I felt this scratching and pattering on my head – a mouse – on the couch I told it to fuck off and it disappeared thank god. The buggers are spreading and no poison can deal with them…”, 16 March 1975), sustained by unemployment benefit (“bunce”) and in a state of near-permanent inebriation. He was attending the occasional audition (“…11.00 interview for commercial […] for pesticide – did video test…”) but the extremely sporadic acting work he undertakes during the 18 months covered by the diary includes little more than playing a flunky in John Cleese's film Romance with a Double Bass and dubbing a hard-core porn movie. His attempts at finding work followed a familiar pattern:

"...Up betimes and over to Spread Eagle for wine then another. Then changed into suits & B & I went for a large Pernod as a double bunce arrived for him……..down to the Little Theatre to see Chick she said if B & I were to do the play she’d be worried about us being stoned - Christ I said- How dare you - and persuaded her that we had discipline at our fingertips … Back home by tube and so to kip with copy of men only. God what a fate. Must work work work...”  (29th March 1974)

MacKerrell appears to have retained the imperious self-entitlement of a pampered princeling, but his wit and unapologetic commitment to the life he had chosen – no-matter how self-destructive – also shine through in his diaries:

“…Up first – as usual and out for a copy of the Sun and a bottle of red – Bruce’s bunce had not come. He got up after Leslie [Bruce’s girlfriend] had departed an hour late. He ‘phoned them but to no avail so he went out to purchase a bottle of Pernod while I had a bath. When I finished the bath I lashed into the pernicious liquor with him & also into reading Othello. Cassio is a difficult part – another goody goody – at least he displays one flaw getting pissed – shouldn’t have much difficulty there. Got a decent buzz of the Pernod and was slumped in front of the telly when Leslie came back with some soap…” (25 March 1974)

MacKerrell and Robinson are still housemates when the diary begins. In the early months of 1974, MacKerrell’s diary records that Robinson has become increasingly focused on a writing project (“…Up 10.00 to find B. had been up all night on coffee & speed – he was writing and fixing up the bathroom…”, 18 March 1974) and a few weeks later the nature of that project becomes clear:

“Up at about 9.30 to go down to sign on with B[ruce]. The labour [exchange] seemed fuller than usual – they’ve cut down on staff – the buggers. After a pint and to Albert while B went to Kentish assio. 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 window box to chill…” (27 March 1974)

MacKerrell was reading an early draft of the original novel which formed the basis of the later screenplay (a copy of this draft was sold in these rooms, 15 December 2015, lot 64, £8125). At around the same time Robinson also announced that he planned to move out of the Albert Street house, which he did in April 1974, but MacKerrell’s lifestyle continued unchanged. The diaries include references to public events – the 1974 General Election, the 1975 Conservative leadership contest (“…The afternoon whirred on like the wine and I read a bit and dozed and saw that Margaret ‘Valium’ Thatcher has defeated Ted – and that two hours later ‘The Grocer’ has resigned the leadership…”, 4 February 1975) – to plays, films, and music, and to visits home to his family on the isle of Islay. In January 1975 MacKerrell records a short holiday in Gloucestershire that was more successful than Withnail’s fictional trip to the Lake District, although their chosen destination for a walk “was an eerie place […] there had long been rumours of Bacteriological warfare experimentation going on there”; several entries also describe the valiant attempts of estate agents to sell the Albert St house despite MacKerrell’s sleeping or drunken presence. Overall, however, the diaries are a chronicle of MacKerrell’s life in Camden Town, eerily familiar from its fictional counterpart and presided over by the spirit of Withnail (“…we had some wine and then went over to see the wolves…”, 21 August 1974).