The Naked Civil Servant

The three-way feature commentary is sporadically illuminating, but too often descends into mutual luvvie backslapping about what a fantastic job everyone did.

The first of the two interviews takes place in Quentin Crisp's tiny Chelsea flat and the second in Manhattan in 1989. At 25 minutes each, both are frustratingly short, but feature Crisp as a characteristically frank interviewee, politely indulging the occasional stupid question and ruminating articulately over subjects ranging from love and death to how he manages to get by on less than £12 a week.

The first is the better of the two and makes a good companion piece to the film (it was screened four years before the film was made). In the short amount of time available, we get a glimpse of a sharp, erudite and complex man that in part reveals the shortcomings and limitations of Gold's portrait.

The 1989 Interview, entitled Mavis Catches Up With Quentin Crisp, features Mavis Nicholson conducting a follow-up interview for Thames Television, having previously interviewed Crisp in 1975. Although snippets from the first interview are included as part of the new programme, it is sadly not included on the disc in its entirety. Presumably the original tape is no longer in the archives. It is also a pity that other surviving footage of Crisp hasn't been collected on a second disc to provide a more comprehensive archive.