After a foray in Hollywood, Danny Boyle returns, with a script by British playwright Jim Cartwright (Little Voice), to the gritty, frenetic verve of his Shallow Grave and Trainspotting. Made for BBC films and lensed by acclaimed cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (The Celebration), the film recalls the punk ethos and grimy despair of the Thatcher epoch. Strayman (Eccleston), a street poet followed everywhere by a baying pack of dogs, interrupts the karaoke sessions at his local pub to deliver hard-edged, free-verse rants. After rescuing a shy, homeless girl (Manchester music celebrity Genna G), who soon provides musical accompaniment to his poetry, the pair hook up with a local entrepreneur and set off to London with the ambition of putting on an offbeat musical. Described as “the off-kilter progeny of A Hard Day’s Night, The Great Rock and Roll Swindle, and Naked,” Strumpet is a kinetic lampoon of the contemporary creative scene.