★★★★☆

The Critic is not, I’m sad to say, the film of the magazine. Our time will come, and what a tale it will be. While you wait, here is a Jacobean tragedy remade for our Carolean age and set in Edwardian London. Ian McKellen plays Jimmy Erskine, a theatre writer known to his fans as “The Beast”.

He can play me when they come to make the film of the magazine

He works for The Chronicle, whose headquarters very much resemble those of The Express in its great days. But change is coming, and they days of grumpy old men pouring bile onto the page while fiddling their expenses is coming to an end. Possibly  this is about us after all.

The film is, in theory, adapted from Anthony Quinn’s novel Curtain Call. In fact it bears little resemblance to the book, except in its evocation of London Theatreland between the wars. When Erskine sits in his flat in the evenings, you can almost smell the fog of cigarettes and Scotch.

Erskine is, objectively, a loathsome figure: a preening bully, in love with his own voice, given to dropping obscure bits of Latin into his copy to show off. It’s a tribute to both the script and McKellen that for all this he comes across as at least slightly likeable. Gemma Arterton, playing an actress, Nina Land, who is one of the victims of his pen, begins to uncover what seems at first to be a softer centre.

But facing exile from his job, Erskine sets about blackmailing his proprietor, played by Mark Strong. It’s a dark tale, with strong performances all round, especially from Alfred Enoch, as Erskine’s assistant, who sees his employer’s redeeming features even as he realises, with mounting horror, the extent of his capability for wickedness.

We know of course that McKellen can switch in a heartbeat from kindly to menacing, but it’s always a joy to be reminded of how well Strong can suffer on screen. His face has a sadness to it that does more than any dialogue could. “Less!” Erskine advises Land at one point, when she asks for acting guidance. Does anyone do less than Strong to more effect? He can play me when they come to make the film of the magazine.