The Bard

My housemate Henry, when he was sick or hungover or just in a shit, was fond of dramatic pronouncements. These pronouncements were relevant phrases to his current state of mind that he’d memorised from some TV show or movie and saved up for the right occasion. It was his thing. Being eight years older than me I thought it was a kind of mansplaining too, but he was a good housemate otherwise.

Tonight after work, while gently stirring his alleged world-famous pea and mushroom risotto, Henry stated, “I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth.” He had been quiet for the last half hour, which was twenty-nine minutes longer than usual, so I knew he was upset or a bit down. More importantly though, I knew the quote.

“Henry, that one I know. That’s Shakespeare, Hamlet to be precise.” I rattled off.

 “One of the best bits of the play in fact.” I confidently added, sure that my opinion would be confirmed. After all he’d said it, not me.

Henry looked at me for a long time, his wooden spoon stilled. After a while he muttered, “Well, yes of course, but its Withnail that says it.” He looked annoyed and recommenced stirring with increased force.

I was baffled. “No, it’s Hamlet’s speech. What’s a Withnail?” I asked.

Henry turned again, and still stirring, fixed me with a wide-eyed look of astonishment mixed with a little bit of masculine superiority.

“You’ve never seen Withnail And I?”

He didn’t wait for any confirmation.

“It’s a fucking cracker of a film. And you’ve never seen it?”

“Never even heard of it,” I replied, starting to feel very judged.

Henry read my face and turned the shock and awe down a notch.

“Wow, well we need to fix that. It’s a great movie about two unemployed actors, so funny but also very sad, very English, it’s really, really good. And if you don’t like it I don’t think we can stay housemates.”

He said the last sentence with such seriousness I believed him.

“Right then, this Saturday night, is Withnail and I night,” Henry continued, “So be on the couch and we start at 7.30. I might see if we could find our own Camberwell Carrot beforehand too.”

The last bit was just gibberish to me so I concentrated instead on setting the table. Over dinner our other housemate Taylor, who had been in the shower and missed the whole conversation, agreed wholeheartedly that another viewing of Withnail And I was a great idea. I was going to ask about another viewing but thought I’d let it go.

The next day I came home from work to find Henry and Taylor sitting on the couch in their usual positions, an opened bottle of wine and full glasses in front of them.

“It’s not Saturday, is it?” I blurted, trying to be funny before realising that Henry was crying. He looked up and said,

“Got made fucking redundant.”

I sat in between them and we all stared at the black screen of the turned off TV.

Suddenly Taylor pulled out her phone. I’m ordering Thai takeaway, our usuals plus extra prawn toast. We can’t wait until Saturday. Withnail And I is on. Tonight.”

 Henry drank most of his glass and nodded.

“Can’t fucking hurt, not like I got work tomorrow.”

A movie about two unemployed actors that is very British and very sad didn’t sound like the best entertainment for someone who had just lost their job. Henry started to wonder out loud whether he would be able to stand moving back home if he couldn’t find another job. His parents, like mine, lived kilometres away on the edge of suburbia in a brand-new home in one of those estates where the houses were so close you could step on your neighbour’s roof from your own. So I understood. But I was also surprised. I didn’t know that I had a Thai takeaway usual, but I did know I had work tomorrow and had planned a 6.00am Core session at the fitness centre as well. I opened my mouth to ask just what is my usual, and maybe could we wait until Saturday, but Taylor gave me a pleading look so instead I said,

“I’ll walk down and pick it up, get another bottle of wine too.

Taylor said, “Thanks but make that two bottles. Pay you back later.”

I also found out that night, that Withnail and I is a black British comedy about two unemployed actors—Withnail, a flamboyant alcoholic, and his reserved friend, "I" and what happens when they leave their squalid, 1960’s London flat for a break in the countryside. Borrowing a cottage from Withnail’s eccentric Uncle Monty, their weekend quickly unravels into a comic tragedy highlighted by hunger, rain, and Monty’s unwanted advances. The movie is very funny but overhanging it all is a sense of impending doom and melancholic resignation.  When they return to London everything changes, but only for one of them. The final scene of Withnail, bottle in hand, alone in the rain, reciting the soliloquy from Hamlet is heartbreaking and is to my mind one of the all-time sad movie scenes.

And yet it is such a good film that somehow it was just what we and especially Henry needed. We laughed, we cried, I ate my usual, which turns out is Larb Gai and we drank too much wine. Henry and Taylor recited lines with the characters and I now know about a Camberwell Carrot. And despite waking up bleary and headachy I found the energy to go to the Core session.

When I got back Henry looked up from his bowl of cereal and smiled. “I found my mirth. In fact you could say that I got my mojo back baby.”

A mojo? I must have looked puzzled.

Henry wearing that annoying face again, asked, “You have seen Austin Powers, haven’t you?”

Photo by Max Muselmann on Unsplash