15, 94 mins

Roger Michell’s comedy, Venus, could be the twilight sequel to Withnail and I. Two fruity old thesps who never quite made the big time cut each other’s toenails or banter over the obituaries in their local caff. Both occasionally work, mostly as corpses in the Accident & Emergency department, on television soaps.

Their cosy routine of breakfasts and whiskies takes an unexpected battering when a distant niece turns up to look after Ian (Leslie Phillips) in return for lodging. Ian is expecting an enthusiastic teenager who will devour Bach and Dickens. Jessie is a sullen Jade Goody clone in pink spandex who devours Pot Noodles and Bacardi Breezers.

“It’s hardly been 24 hours and I’m screaming for euthanasia,” whimpers Ian to Peter O’Toole’s delighted Maurice. Hanif Kureishi’s script is a scatological joy, and quietly savage about the brittle realities of age.

O’Toole is a lecherous marvel, and worth every ounce of his Oscar nomination for Best Actor. There’s the limp grey hair, the powdery cheeks, the dark, glassy eyes twitching with forgotten glamour. He becomes obsessed with Jodie Whittaker’s grumpy teen. He takes her to the Royal Court, gets her drunk, dribbles over her in taxis, and calls her Venus after Velázquez’s one and only nude (the Rokeby Venus) at the National Gallery. Jessie is immune to his poetry, D-list celebrity and Edwardian whims. She pumps O’Toole for negligible amounts of cash he can ill afford in exchange for kisses and glimpses of flesh. It’s deeply sleazy, yet there’s something unexpectedly touching about the spooky and needy usury.

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