An effective, if unexpected, collision of writing styles: subject Orton’s baroque sexual satires should in theory jar sharply with scriptwriter Alan Bennett’s observational domestic style, but it all works a treat drawing out the small details in Orton’s upbringing and later home life with lover, Kenneth Halliwell, contrasted against his more broadly drawn art-mirroring-life sexual adventures down the local cottage (“We call them Tea Rooms in America”).

Judiciously worked in a double flashback, the useful device of latter biographer, John Lahr, guides the narrative as he researches his 1978 book Prick Up Your Ears, through each metamorphosis of Orton’s life from burgeoning, if limited, acting ability in a working class home – “Prancing around like Sabu” – to maturing literary life in London and eventual tragedy.

At first reticent, Orton’s nascent writing ability, not to say homosexuality, blooms under the tutelage of the older Halliwell, cooped-up in a cramped flat in the then not-so fashionable Islington (“Islington’s coming up – the pub does salad now”). At first lovers, but soon trapped in a loveless marriage of gradually shifting powerbases: Orton’s literary stock soars as Halliwell’s stalls in a realisation of his limited talent.

The claustrophobia of the locale and later the relationship it traps is palpable and the resultant murder of Orton is still shocking despite providing the starting point for the film.

Frears steers the film with economy and focus; the cast invest their performances with zest and verve. Gary Oldman makes a wonderfully cheeky Orton and Alfred Molina a suitably morose Halliwell. A word too for Stanley Black’s bouncy score which underlines the slowly evaporating joie de vivre with aplomb.

But the script is the star with some deliciously black moments of humour, notably the final scene at the crematorium with Orton’s sister gingerly attempting to mix, in equal parts, the ashes of Orton and Halliwell, being observed by a chastising Peggy Ramsey – “It’s a gesture dear – not a recipe!”