The pejorative insult to someone a bit gay at school in my day was calling them Quentin. I suppose that was a sign that Quentin Crisp had made it big into the national consciousness.
I actually have vague memories of watching some of The Naked Civil Servant when it was first broadcast. I was far too young to understand what it was all about.
There was so much ballyhoo about the show. That my parents must have switched it on to watch and were presumably appalled at what was being broadcast.
Quentin Crisp himself appears in the introduction and the end to this television movie made for ITV. It features a tour de force performance from John Hurt as Quentin Crisp. It is a brave bravura acting performance, totally unflinching. If the film was released for the cinema he would had got an Oscar nomination.
It is the story of Quentin Crisp from his time as an effeminate young man in the 1930s right until he enters middle age after World War 2. A flamboyant gay man who had to frequent the underground gay scene in London. On his tail were queer bashers and the police.
Quentin Crisp was open about the beatings he regularly received and the harassment he got from the police.
There is something Oscar Wilde about Crisp, his open pomp and glitz. The film has despite its serious undercurrents a lot of humour and cheekiness.
Almost life affirming, a man who knows he is different and will not shy away from his real self. Despite the criticisms and the violence he encountered.
Directed by Jack Gold it was moves along at a quick pace with plenty of quirky characters that Crisp encounters in his life. There is an element of fantasy about the production as well as brutal realism. Crisp recalls a happy moment on his life when he meets a group of sailors in Portsmouth. It is done in dazzling manner in a sound stage.
