Just in from Sue W (via The Times):

Actor Richard E. Grant, 48, is allergic to alcohol but has a serious Christmas-pudding addiction.

In the film Withnail & I, you downed a bottle of lighter fluid. What is the most toxic thing you’ve ever imbibed?

Alcohol: I don’t drink. During the rehearsals for Withnail, the director insisted that I get paralytically drunk so I’d know what it was like. It was dreadful. I was so ill I vomited and passed out.

Can’t handle your booze?

My doctor tells me I’m genuinely allergic to alcohol. I don’t have the enzyme that can process it in my bloodstream.

Is that genetic?

I have no idea where it comes from. Apparently half of all Japanese people have the same thing, as do some Aborigines, Native Americans and Inuits. Whether I have a genetic connection with any of them, I don’t know.

Any other unlikely complaints? I had terrible migraines as a child so I stopped eating dairy, which seemed to work.

No other pills, spills or bellyaches? None – apart from the usual scrapes that boys get into; falling out of tree houses, coming off my rollerskates and needing stitches.

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