Bruce Robinson is an English actor, director, screenwriter and novelist. He wrote and directed Withnail and I (1987), a film with comic and tragic elements set in London in the late 1960s, which drew on his experiences as a struggling actor, living in poverty in Camden Town.
Robinson in 2016
Bruce Robinson and Lesley-Anne Down in the late 1970s
Robinson at the premiere of The Rum Diary
Withnail and I is a 1987 British black comedy film written and directed by Bruce Robinson. Loosely based on Robinson's life in London in the late 1960s, the plot follows two unemployed actors, Withnail and "I" who share a flat in Camden Town in 1969. Needing a holiday, they obtain the key to a country cottage in the Lake District belonging to Withnail's eccentric uncle Monty and drive there. The weekend holiday proves less recuperative than they expected.
Original UK release poster Art by Ralph Steadman
"Marwood"? A telegram arrives at Crow Crag
"The King Henry" played by the Crown Inn. The great elm tree outside the pub and shown in the film subsequently died of Dutch Elm Disease and has been replaced.