Talking in the Library Series 4 – Richard E. Grant

Richard E. Grant became everybody's favourite British upmarket eccentric actor as the tall one in Withnail and I. Even Hollywood could tell he was from Britain. He was in fact from Swaziland, but that made him more Empire than anybody. Secretly powering his gift for droll comedy was a deep sense of personal unease stemming from his childhood. The story began to surface in his first book of diaries — With Nails — and in his novel about Hollywood By Design. Both books were disturbingly well written if you happened to be a writer. But the full story came out, and his writing reached even deeper, with the script for the movie he directed, Wah Wah. His book of the movie, The Wah Wah Diaries, is a real contribution to the vexed subject of imperial twilight, as well as being a deliciously entertaining account of a movie on the brink of disaster. The average film star is an ego on the loose. So is the average writer. Put them together and what do you get?