The film's awkward hero is Harry (Hannah), a painfully shy young man with a Madagascar shaped birthmark, who flees the nightmares of the city and the unhappy gropings of gay clubland. He ends up alone on a rocky, seaweed-strewn seashore. In the strangest of circumstances he bumps into the larger than life, overtly heterosexual Flint (Hill), a cheeky bruiser with a definitely dodgy past. Hiding out in an abandoned cottage, their mutual suspicion begins to melt.

Made with Chris Newby's eye for lyrical imagery and small but meaningful detail, Madagascar Skin is a film with surprising moments of intimacy and a wonderfully joyful resolution to its unlikely tale.