Madfabulous

The most perfumed page of the LGBTQ+ history books is reserved for Henry Paget, fifth Marquis of Anglesey. A turn-of-the-century aristocrat whose dangerous addiction to jewels, outlandish get-ups and lavish theatricals nearly sunk the economy of a small Welsh island, he's already been the subject of a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek stage musical (Seiriol Davies' award-winning How to Win Against History). Now his story is getting a more straightforward outing in this entertaining, if sometimes plodding period flick.

Its star Callum Scott-Howells rose to fame playing timid, tragic Colin in Channel 4 AIDS drama It's a Sin. He gets to have more fun as Paget, even if his tragic downfall is on the cards right from the film's opening minutes: he coughs, and a few specks of blood fall onto the cameo of his beloved mother that always hangs around his neck. Scott-Howells' likeable performance captures the varying moods of this mad, maddening aristocrat. Initially, he's invested with the dignity of Anne Boleyn being rowed to the scaffold as he sails into Anglesey harbour, reluctantly leaving gay Paris for soggy Wales, where he must adopt his position among the tedious gentry. Rupert Everett makes a welcome appearance as his butler-cum-mentor Gelert, named after a loyal dog from Welsh mythology, and full of faintly-exasperated kindness towards this young pup. Gradually, his charge starts to have a little fun.

Paget is a turn-of-the-century aristocrat with a dangerous addiction to jewels

Director Celyn Jones' production consistently looks gorgeous, with costume designer Francisco Rodriguez-Weil creating immaculate replicas of some of Paget's most striking looks: a plum velvet cloche hat with a rakish feather to dazzle the tweed-clad townsfolk, a sprightly blossom pink suit for striding about his estate, and an outrageous winged kaftan that he wears for his signature 'butterfly dance', performed in his manor's custom-designed theatre.

Some of the early scenes are deliciously funny: like the moment where Paget stuffs forbidden cake into a maidservant's mouth, then insists she takes a silver teapot home as a pressie for her mother. Jones's film understands that queerness, when wielded with bravery, can be a battering ram that knocks down barriers between social classes and genders. And Paget's wife Lily does too: Ruby Stokes is full of spirit as a woman escaping the oppressive tedium of a conventional upper class marriage. In a powerfully sensuous, cryptic scene, a shirtless Paget flexes his muscles in the moonlight while she languishes in bed, draped in diamonds, weighed down by her sexual frustrations.

Is Paget a queer iconoclast or just a deluded fantasist who leaves debt and destruction in his wake? Despite the odd big visual gesture towards Paget's radical weirdness, Madfabulous settles for telling the story of his inevitable downfall with Downton Abbey-esque British politeness. 

Still, it's a fabulously enjoyable introduction to a character who shines as brightly as the strings of diamonds that will eventually start to strangle him.

In UK and Ireland cinemas Jun 5.