F eelgood true-life heart-warmers about courageous people overcoming medical conditions are common enough. But not when that condition zaps and jabs and stabs at the genre itself, piercing the carapace of sentimentality while surreally commenting on the form and on the demure niceties of polite society, in which we all keep our thoughts to ourselves.

Kirk Jones’s terrifically warm, generous film is about real-life activist John Davidson, who is from Galashiels in the Scottish Borders and has Tourette syndrome, with its tics, compulsive behaviour patterns and random obscene shouts. He was awarded an MBE in 2019 for his work educating the nation about the condition since he first exhibited its symptoms as a teenager in 1989, as captured in the BBC’s sensational documentary John’s Not Mad

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