The raw intensity and personal honesty that Richard E Grant brought to Withnail and I was real and has never left him. Now the actor and diarist, still grieving the loss of his wife, talks openly about heartbreak, ambition and his traumatic upbringing

A month before she died, the acclaimed dialect coach Joan Washington recorded a poem to be played on her daughter’s wedding day. Washington died on 2 September 2021 from lung cancer, concluding a 38-year marriage to the actor and diarist Richard E Grant. Olivia, the couple’s daughter, celebrated her marriage this past September at the house Grant and Washington shared in London. Grant wore an elegant tuxedo, his blue eyes startling, and the house was swollen with flowers. His speech included “all the things a father says. You want it to be as humorous and as heartfelt as possible, in that combination, so people aren’t stabbing themselves with their forks.