I’m writing this article by mistake. And, with that, I hear synapses firing, recollections stirring, and smiles widening. Such is the power of a film shot around this very time, 40 years ago. Started shooting August 2, 1986, finished around mid-September. Roughly seven weeks. But by God, its influence endures so much longer. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be writing this. Not by mistake, incidentally. Out of pure undying love. For the genius of Bruce Robinson, Richard E Grant, Paul McGann, Richard Griffith, Ralph Brown et al...

Withnail and I is many things to many people. Scabrous delight. Coming-of-age viewing. And – both famously and infamously – a drinking game best approached with extreme caution. Remember, never attempt anything without the gloves. The last quip is testament to its real power though; the power of the quotable line. Because in the pantheon of quotable films, Withnail and I is at the top, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Spinal Tap and Blazing Saddles. But I feel Withnail turns the quotes up to 12, not 11.

This is hardly new news to Withnail aficionados. And they are legion. For once you taste the bittersweet fruit of Robinson’s script, made flesh by the bravura of Grant and McGann (in the main), you cannot but crave for more. Not too much though. The excess is best enjoyed on screen, as it dances drunkenly into your hippocampus, orders a few ciders (ice in the cider) and settles in for a long night. Funnily enough, it was a long night when I first saw the film. Although I confess, I barely stayed awake for the screening…

Summer of 1992. Cameo, Late night double bill with ‘Jimi Plays Monterey’. Me and couple of uni pals. I was quite pissed; ‘method viewing’ for Withnail, you might say. But I perked up sufficiently to see the opening credits, as the mournful sax of Whiter Shade of Pale kicked in, and Paul McGann made coffee on the stove (to be consumed, unforgettably, in a soup bowl, triggering one of the best rants about the definitions of ‘inhumanity’ ever shown on screen). The next 1 hour and 47 minutes were pure bliss.

There’s no point in me just recapping it all. You can watch the movie for yourself. And rewatch it. Then rewatch it again. The acting, the scene-setting, the filming locations, the soundtrack (good God, that soundtrack with Hendrix front-and-centre, hence the double-bill back at the Cameo in 1992); it’s all quite sensationally good. Only made possible by funding from Beatle, George Harrison’s HandMade Films. Thanks George. But it’s the script gold mined by Robinson that really glows brighter than the sun.

Until then, the most creative language in scripts I’d encountered was watching old Marx Bros films (hey, I was only 19 yrs old, and no cinephile, so shoot me if you think those the words of an ingenue). But this was no clown show. No, it was like being given the keys to a private playground of profanity, pathos and deceptively profound observations about love, loss and the inevitable landslide that is change – be it transitioning from one decade to another, one friendship to another, or even one reality to another.

The beautifully bilious barbs spat by Withnail, the chemical perma-panic of I (a.k.a Marwood), Uncle Monty’s unctuous utterings (by turns predatory and tragic), Danny’s druggy drawl, even the gruff sandpaper buckshot of Michael Elphick’s ‘Jake the Poacher’… it is a cocktail of dialogue of some order. And I swallowed the lot, with the thirst of a man who’d lived on metaphorical milky prose for most of his life. I drank deep from the well and could regurgitate my favourites on demand. Each one had its uses.

I’ve used one up already (the title of this piece). And hinted at others from the first sentence on. But, if pushed, here are my top five lines from this most quotable of films. May it live for decades more.

• “Get in the back of the van!”: used when very frustrated or impatient

• “We want the finest wines available to humanity. We want them here, and we want them now.”: used when desirous of celebrating

• “What’s your name?! McF*ck?!”: used when being angrily dismissive of an annoying type

• “Let’s get home, the sky’s beginning to bruise”: used when observing inclement weather

• “Here, hare, here.”: used for its own sake; a beautiful, poetic, absurd utterance