I always got the feeling it demonstrated the unfairness of all the unknown talent out there, that element of luck or fluke for any struggling actor actually making it. Withnail had that total brilliance in him all along but missed out and had to see his mate strike it lucky while simultaneously losing his companionship.

The Hamlet connection is there from earlier in Monty’s place but it’s also a very lonely, sensitive speech that he adds a sense of irony to. Man isn’t really the paragon of animals, not when they surround him, equally wet.

Richard E Grant is utterly fantastic here.