Restoration England is dark and muddy, and not just underfoot, in this chaotic, entertaining account of the declining years of John Wilmot, Earl Of Rochester, popular poet and playwright. Johnny Depp plays the eponymous author, recently restored to favour with Charles 11, a heavy John Malkovitch doing his narrow-eyed best, but bewitched, as we all are, by the handsomely insouciant Depp, bent on drinking and fornicating himself to death with his collection of reprobate pals. As he explains, it is only in the theatre that he feels alive, for in the anything-goes atmosphere of London it is only on the stage that ‘a dropped handkerchief can return to smother a man’. He falls in love with Lizzie Barry, actress, played by Samantha Morton in a surprisingly dignified performance, given that she and her colleagues see as much action backstage as on it. The theatre scenes are strong on atmosphere, whether in tantalising glimpses of erotic encounters in the wings or out front with the kind of audience who resort to throw oranges when less than enchanted with a performance. This shorthand reminder of the king’s mistress, Nell Gwynne, helps set the context without distracting from the incorrigible Rochester. He tutors Lizzie in how to please him as well as the crowd, but the only approval she craves is that of the audience, which, the film suggests, hastens his self-destructive trajectory. The fine ensemble playing, from Depp’s manservant, whose name, Allcock, amuses his master, to the pipe-smoking mistress of the wardrobe, is entirely subordinated to Depp, and his bizarre apotheosis, a speech in the House of Lords, where, his disease-raddled face covered in white make-up and wearing a silver false nose, he staggers about with walking sticks on the brink of collapse and wins the day for the succession of the monarchy. Michael Nyman’s never-obtrusive music informs the frowsy mise-en-scene, whilst screenplay and dialogue draw on the frankness of Restoration Comedy, hence not for the squeamish. This rollicking portrait of an age and milieu will please audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.