How to Get Ahead in Advertising

Richard E. Grant and director Bruce Robinson’s companion piece to Withnail and I is a dark satire about an ad-man who grows a second head.

Richard E. Grant and director Bruce Robinson’s companion piece to Withnail and I is a dark and delicious satire about an embittered advertising agent who begins to develop an alarming boil on his shoulder. Eventually the boil turns into a second head, which is forthright in expressing its contrasting views about the evils of the advertising profession.

One of the oddest comedies of the 1980s, notable for Grant’s tour de force performance, it remains an under-seen film that’s just as deserving of cult status as Grant and Robinson’s more famous collaboration.