At this writing, 127 Albert Road in Camden Town is a spotlessly elegant town house valued at close to $3 million. Back in 1969, though, it was the ramshackle home of two young aspiring actors: Bruce Robinson, who went on to write and direct the cult movie Withnail and I, and Vivian MacKerrell, who inspired the dissolute character of Withnail.
They would wake up late, spend a few hours drinking in the Spread Eagle pub on the corner with Parkway, then return home to crack open a bottle of red wine. “That whole Camden Town period of my life was all about cheap red and getting smashed on pot,” Robinson recalled in a recent book about the movie. “Perhaps one of the reasons the film survives is that nothing changes—people are still doing that, although no longer in Camden Town,” where, he notes, the working-class “caffs” have all become cafés.
