A Pocketful of Happiness

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The all-new Philadelphia-set drama follows a group of ordinary people, thrown together in a strange and surreal puzzle-solving game to follow clues and unravel a mystery they never knew lay just under the veil of their city. Think The Wizard Of Oz meets Twin Peaks, with dance numbers, a bit of magic, and a Big Mouth Billy Bass thrown in. I went to "An Evening with Richard E Grant", in which Grant talked for over an hour about the book's content, answered audience questions for another hour, and sold and signed copies of the book afterwards. This is a review of his performance of the book. Only thing she says en route is: “Sounds like it’s something serious.” Reach across and squeeze her arm. No, I thought that keeping a very accurate record would be the best way to try to understand what was happening,” he says quietly. His voice today is a little huskier and flatter than usual, as if the events of the past year have hollowed the stuffing out of him.

In early 1983, when Joan was coaching on three different productions at the RSC and National Theatre and I was doing a lunch-hour play in a pub theatre on a profit share basis, which meant zero pay, she wrote me a letter, declaring that: Home. Oilly is upbeat and excited about Christmas, totally unaware of the seriousness of our situation. Yet. Which is how Joan is determined to maintain things. So much so that when we leave for our 2 p.m. appointment, she says, “I’m sure it’s going to be all right, Mum.” Frustrating? I suppose sometimes it was. But at the same time, you know, it was always a bit tongue-in-cheek-y from her,” he says. She fixed me with her big monkey eyes and said, “All right—but you’ll have to repay me, if you ever make it.” It’s a classic Grant anecdote, a mix of the eminently relatable and the unimaginably starry, which he encounters with an endearing everyman kind of astonishment. Of course, given that Grant has been famous for 35 years now, ever since his career-defining debut in Withnail and I, his phone call from Elton John didn’t come entirely out of the blue; he writes in the next paragraph that, in fact, he was quite pally with the singer for a while, before falling out of touch a few years ago “in the warp and weft of showbusiness friendships”. But ever since Grant published his first memoir, With Nails, in 1996, followed by The Wah Wah Dairies: The Making of a Film in 2006 – both about his adventures in moviemaking and written in his wry but wide-eyed tone – he has been making the public feel as if we are experiencing his extraordinary life alongside him, and displays the same excitement about it as we would.She never tired of teasing me about my adolescent-adult obsession with “Babs,” and it’s a true measure of how secure our love is for each other that she wasn’t threatened by my fantasy idolatry, even after I’d commissioned a two-foot-tall sculpture of Streisand’s face for the garden. Initially, when I decided to write this book, I thought I wouldn’t write anything about the illness part of Joan’s life,” he says. “But then I remembered some advice Bruce [Robinson, writer and director of Withnail and I] gave me about screenwriting. He said: ‘Write about something that has happened today that’s never happened before,’ and nothing had ever been more life-changing for us than Joan’s diagnosis.”

What’s tough is no longer having what I call the ‘steering wheel stuff’, the stuff that you talk about at the end of the day, when you call the person you love most in the world and say: ‘Well, I spoke to the person from the Guardian, and oh my God she was the person from the Guardian at the Oscars,’ because I’d want her view on it,” he says. This book is a celebration of love and friendship. Including the community who reached out and supported the family through the darkest moments of the final year of Joan's life. Friends, health professionals, palliative care specialists, neighbours. It also exposes the profound heartache when two lives so deeply intertwined are severed. Richard must find a way forward on his own without Joan, after 38 years together. We don't document or talk about death as a society. This book however, gives us insight into the process of dying. There was stuff that involved body doubles – now how can I say this without giving it away? I can’t tell you what it is, because it’s a plot spoiler. Anyway, there are doubles of things, put it that way. And that was surreal to do.” Sorry, should have said, I like to smell everything in sight. Always have done. Ever since I can remember. Can’t understand why everyone doesn’t. You’re a brilliant cook.”Martin Amis once wrote that the very act of writing is an act of love, and that’s what I feel writing about Joan. The best responses I’ve had to the book so far are people saying they feel like they got to know who Joan is – was,” he corrects himself. It’s also spread into your clavicle lymph nodes. It could be some kind of severe infection, but is most likely to be a form of lung cancer, so I’d like to do a biopsy under local anaesthetic next week.” As with all celebrity autobiography, Grant is a victim of his own success. My mind wandered to other people who have experienced what Grant has without the exuberant wealth and high society support network that reaches the echelons of King Charles. Whilst you feel for Grant as a human, the way in which the book darts between trivial celebrirty anecdote and personal moments is emotionally draining and confusing. Once you've stepped off the running machine, it's suddenly clear where you're actually standing and who is standing with and beside you. And who ISN'T." Image: Richard E Grant and Joan Washington on their wedding day and on their 34th anniversary ( Source)

Around this time, I received a letter from Equity, the actors’ union, and was informed that a retired actor called Richard Grant had complained, after seeing his name outside the Churchill Theatre, requiring me to change mine. Called Equity in a panic and explained that I had no money, and that my name was printed on all my ten-by-eight photos already. Not to be disingenuous about it, but that’s the nature of an actor’s life,” he tells Shortlist of his current, homebound life, “I have actor friends that have said that apart from not being able to go anywhere, it doesn’t really feel any different because, for a lot of the time it’s feast or famine: if you’re working, then you’re filming every hour of the day, and you’re so grateful when you have a day off, but the majority of the time you’re not working.” Joan was born in Aberdeen, Scotland which shows in her determination to try to keep on going as Scottish are well known for their stubborn look on life and their ‘fight to the end’ on life as a whole. I’ve seen this in family members and friends as we do not like to wear our feelings on our sleeves so to speak and keep a lot hidden from family for fear of worrying them yet we can offload to complete strangers! According to Variety, while Hammond will host a new BAFTA Studio featuring interviews and insights, Plumb and Hope will cover the red carpet. This honest and frequently hilarious memoir is written in honour of that challenge – Richard has faithfully kept a diary since childhood, and in these entries he shares in raw detail everything he has experienced : both the pain of losing his beloved wife, and the excitement of their life together, from the role that transformed his life overnight in Withnail & I to his thrilling Oscar nomination thirty years later for Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Post-Christmas lull and slump. Played Scrabble and the first word Joan puts down is “memorial” and, without missing a beat, quips, “I’m still here, Swaz!” Would you mind if I stayed the night in your guest bedroom, as I’ve missed the last tube? My fault.” I can only begin to imagine the emotional strength it must take to write, publish and promote a book within a year of the death of your life partner. And Richard E Grant’s love and admiration for his wife, Joan Washington, shines though every paragraph. A gorgeously candid account of acting and show business. And an intimate and heartfelt story of love, loss and a life spent together. It is an honour to be invited in on these diaries. I cannot remember being so moved by a book.”