Nicola writes: Richard again on TV at xmas! Good old Victoria! Don’t know what date as it didn’t say. It’s a “search the schedule” when it turns up!

“Victoria Wood With All The Trimmings welcomes top guest stars including Derek Jacobi, Alan Rickman, Pete Postlethwaite, Delia Smith and Richard E Grant.”

Just a quick note to say that the PAL/DVD release of Serpent’s Kiss is coming out on December 5. The video is very pricey, but we’re still in the stages of finding out if the North American company with the rights is going to do with it. The company is Trimark (owned by Lion’s Gate.)

Also click here for a pic of James Fitzmaurice and his cousin(?) He looks positively diabolical.

Ready for another “Jack” still from Pat? If so then just click here.

Pimps to be shown Downunder.

I was happy to be informed by Maureen that The Guide (Sydney Morning Herald’s weekly TV guide) says that “Richard E. Grant returns as the 18th-century James Bond in a second series of The Scarlet Pimpernel” as part of the ABC’s offerings for next year. WOOHOO! A year late, but nice to know us colonials finally get to see the second pimp in 2001.

Jenny (and a few others) spotted Blenheim Palace-which doubled as Percy’s house-being featured on a British TV program called “Great Estates” recently. It was where they filmed the last scenes of the Scarlet Pimpernel Episode Six. There were several lovely shots of Richard: yawning his head off, sitting quietly in contemplative mood, waiting, smiling and signing autographs. She managed to snap some screen shots for us, which you can see here. Thanks Jen (and hubby)!

Denise spotted “I demand more booze” shown on Film Four on Monday 15th Jan 2001-a documentary about a group of students who took part in the Withnail drinking game. Made-up as part of a men mag article on Withnail (glossy men’s, Esquire or something) the idea was that every time the Withnail character has a drink, you at home have the equivalent! Yes some idiot even tried the lighter fuel!There were also comments on game by Richard and Mr Robinson.

Pat sent me the beginning of an article she got from the ebay auction. She didn’t have the magazine or date it came from though but it’s a cool writeup on the Serpent’s Kiss with a nice pic of James Fitzmaurice. If you can’t read it let me know and I’ll re-type it if I can find the time.

Nikki tells us that the video of The Christmas Carol can be bought NOW from any shop that sells videos in the UK. She also found this quirky little piece:

STARS DRAW ON STORE OF TALENT TO SAVE RED SQUIRREL (14/9/00)

Celebrities including Sir Paul McCartney, the Duchess of York and Sir Michael Caine have been showing off their artistic flair in aid of the endangered red squirrel.

More than 200 stars agreed to take part in a “scribble a squirrel” competition to raise awareness of the plight of the mammal, which could become extinct in England in the next decade. The pictures range in quality with some stars clearly more artistic than others.

Sir Paul’s effort is in proportion and gently shaded. But Sir Michael Caine’s line drawing is less accomplished, a fact he readily acknowledged, saying: “Good job I’m an actor.”
The pictures are to be auctioned on the Internet during Red Squirrel Week.

The auction will run for two weeks and will raise money for the North East Wildlife Trust and The Calvert Trust, charities which both work to raise awareness of the dangers facing the red squirrel in England.

Others whose pictures will be auctioned include Phil Collins, Sir Elton John, Barry Manilow, Sir Norman Wisdom, Richard E Grant, Rolf Harris, Sir Richard Branson and the Duchess of York.

Anyone know where the website is?

The Sydney Morning Herald – 11th November, 2000

By Peter Gotting

Richard E. Grant’s career has very much been Withnail and I.

His character, Withnail, in the 1987 cult film, is still with him. It still defines him as an actor.

“If you play somebody that’s so distinctive as that drug-addicted oddball, I suppose you do get drafted into that area,” he says. “People who are not obviously conventional.”

But he has never played another unemployed, alcoholic actor. Grant, 43, has instead appeared in large commercial films such as the “huge, mega-box office bomb” Hudson Hawk and the Spice Girls movie Spice World.

And he’s just finished filming the Australian family film Hildegarde, shot on the Gold Coast. It is about three children who chase the abductors of their pet duck. Grant plays the “Pom villain”.

The film is not so much in the tradition of Babe, he says, as the animals do not talk: “They quack and do all the things animals do.”

He chooses his varied roles, he says, on the basis of the script and the people involved. And by what his daughter, Olivia, wants.

“My main attraction to doing [Hildegarde] was to come to Australia, and be paid to do so, and that I have an 11-year-old daughter.”

It’s the same reason he played the Spice Girls’ manager in Spice World. “She said if there’s any film you are going to be in, you have to be in this Spice Girls film. Nobody had delusions we were making some great masterpiece of art. It was just in the vein of all those pop-schlop movies that mostly came out of the Monkees and the Beatles and Cliff Richard in the ’60s.”

Born Richard Grant Esterhuysen in Mbabane, Swaziland, Grant moved to London in 1982, where he spent five years unemployed before his big break with Withnail and I. Since then he has appeared in films such as Henry and June, The Player, Prêt-á-Porter and the BBC adaptation of The Scarlet Pimpernel.

It is understandable his daughter influences his career decisions. In 1986, his first daughter, Tiffany, was born two months premature and died within an hour, the horror of which is detailed in his memoirs and film diaries, With Nails. Olivia was born one month premature after his wife, Joan, spent three months in hospital.

Another influential figure in his life is his father, Henrik, who was the Swazi minister for education. He died just before Grant moved to London. On both wrists Grant wears a watch, one of which belonged to his father and is set to Swaziland time.

His next project is his own film, Wah Wah, which he wrote and will direct next year. Set in Africa at the end of the ’60s, “it’s basically my father’s story”, he says.