BRIDPORT’S Film Festival, From Page to Screen, will pay tribute to the life of the late John Hurt with a special screening of The Naked Civil Servant.

The 1975 television version of The Naked Civil Servant was based on Quentin Crisp’s 1968 book of the same name and was broadcast on British and US television and made both actor John Hurt and Crisp himself into stars.

Crisp as a youth enjoyed wearing make-up and painting his nails and worked as a rent boy in his teens. He then spent 30years as a professional model for life-classes in art colleges.

The interviews he gave about his unusual life attracted increasing public curiosity and he was soon sought after for his highly individual views on social manners and the cultivating of style.

The Naked Civil Servant tells the story of his attempts to live his life as an openly and unapologetically flamboyant homosexual in an uncomprehending pre-war Britain. Reviled, harassed and eventually arrested (on a spurious charge of soliciting) in the Thirties and Forties, by the time of the film’s initial release in the mid-1970s, Crisp had become something of a national treasure – Britain’s self proclaimed “Stately Homo”.

The Oscar-nominated actor whose career spanned six decades and included films such as The Elephant Man and Harry Potter, died earlier this year at the age of 77.

*The Naked Civil Servant will be shown on Friday April 21 at 2pm. From Page to Screen will run from Wednesday April 19 to Sunday April 23. Contact Bridport Arts Centre for tickets.