‘Shall we look at Barbra in the garden?’ asks Richard E Grant, referring to – who else? – La Streisand. That he is asking me this while sitting in what he explains is ‘half of a gondola that once used to belong to the Maharishi’ compounds the feeling that this is all a rather intense fever dream.
From the outside, Richard’s house in Richmond does not look especially magical. A brick wall maintains his privacy from the passengers on passing buses and an easy-to-miss small black gate is the only entry. But as this shuts behind me, I am Alice looking round Wonderland. On the immediate right of Richard’s large, lush garden is the theatrical stage set from one of his most recent films, Saltburn. This is decked with massive silver baubles purloined from a Jo Malone Christmas window display, all of which frame a bust of Barbra Streisand (more of whom later). Next to this is a long pergola filled with lanterns, rattan sofas, an 18th-century Italian fountain, which helps to block out the noise of traffic, and a Chesneys fireplace. It looks as cosy as a Christmas cottage in a snowstorm.
At the end of the garden is a picture-perfect Georgian house and standing in front of it is Richard, the white rabbit himself. He is as dashing and dandy as he was in his star-making debut in Withnail and 137 years ago, although his living quarters are a definite improvement on Withnail’s decaying Camden flat. ‘Come inside. People either really love it or they find it all just too, too much,’ he says and, as we enter the house, he grins as my mouth falls wide open.
Richard and his wife, the dialect-coach Joan Washington, who died in 2021, spotted the house 35 years ago. They were actually viewing the house next door and this one – with the large garden and high ceilings that Richard wanted – was not for sale at the time. But five ears later it was and, as soon as Richard walked through the gate, he declared the house and garden to be ‘absolutely right’.
