Withnail and I/Funny

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


It's only a minor exaggeration to say that the whole script could be put here, directions included. Still, exercising restraint, here's a few of the highlights:

  • Alone in the cottage way out in the countryside, they think that someone is trying to break in and kill them. The suspense builds and builds... then at the hight of suspense, it is revealed to be porcine Uncle Monty dropping in unannounced. There is a long, long, pause before Withnail exclaims, "MONTY YOU TERRIBLE CUNT!".
  • Withnail is a gold mine of comedy:
    • "We've gone on holiday by mistake!"
    • "Where's the booze? I DEMAND TO HAVE SOME BOOZE!"
    • "I want something's flesh!!" Followed by a hysterical scene of Withnail splashing about in a stream, blasting fish with a shotgun.
    • "I feel like a pig shat in my head."
    • "We want the finest wines available to humanity and we want them here and we want them now."
    • Then there's the immortal: "I have a heart condition. If you hit me, it's murder."
    • "How dare you. How dare you call me inhumane! Right, you fucker! I'm going to do the washing-up!"
    • Just the sight of Withnail ranting away while dressed in nothing but underpants and a blue rubber glove, covered in Deep Heat.
  • Marwood AKA "I" has a few gems as well:
    • "A coward you are, Withnail. An expert on bulls you are not!"
    • "My thumbs have gone weird! I'm in the middle of a fucking overdose!"
      • And of course, he then goes on to declare "My heart's beating like a fucked clock!"
  • And Uncle Monty is a treasure trove of quotes:
    • "As a child I used to weep in butcher's shops."
    • "Flowers are essentially tarts. Prostitutes for the bees."
    • "There is, you'll agree, a certain 'je ne sais quoi' oh, so very special about a firm, young carrot."
    • "I mean to have you, even if it must be burglary!" Rape is freakin' hilarious when it's Richard Griffiths on Paul McGann.
    • "Yet again that oaf has destroyed my day!"
    • "It's trying to get itself in with you. Trying for even more advantage. It's obsessed with its gut. It's like a bloody rugby ball now. It will die! It will die!"
  • Don't forget Danny the drug-dealer:
    • His whole getup is laugh-out-loud hilarious.
    • Every time he tells Withnail not to get "uptight."
    • After Withnail reveals that "a gang of hot dog vendors considered a haircut beyond the limit of [his] ability," Danny advises him against getting a haircut in any event because "all hairdressers are in the employment of the government. Hair are your aerials. They pick up signals from the cosmos and transmit them directly into the brain. This is the reason bald-headed men are uptight!" To which Withnail responds: "What absolute twaddle!"
    • "If I medicined you, you'd think a brain tumor was a birthday present!"
  • Then there's the second policeman who pulls Withnail over for drunk driving, who only gets one line, but what a line it is: "Getinthebackofthevan!!"
  • The scene where Marwood and Withnail, totally wasted, pretend they're millionaires in a cafe full of posh people. Richard E. Grant breaking character and not being able to stop giggling makes it all the more amusing.
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