MAXINE Peake gives a jewel of a performance in this ramshackle, equally fascinating and frustrating tale of a woman who “has a funny bone for a backbone” attempting to break into the male-dominated world of stand-up comedy in the north of England in the 1970s.

Her fictional story is told through a series of miniature episodes stitched together in a distractingly haphazard fashion. It drunkenly staggers over timelines from her council estate upbringing under an abusive father (Stephen Graham, also playing the grown-up version of her brother) to her debut as a comic to her home life with abusive husband Bob (Tony Pitts) which she tries to escape by pensively starting a relationship with sophisticated book shop owner Angus (Paddy Considine).

While this means it’s cloaked in eccentric unconventionality, it also makes it feel all over the stage to the point where you wish it would just settle its nerves and focus on doing one thing really well.

The central character is never given a real name, referred to only as the self-appointed nickname of the title or, indeed, much worse as she soon finds out when she ventures up on a comedy stage that has only ever welcomed men and where women are stuck into two categories: singer or stripper. “They’ll be on you like a pack of wolves,” warns world-weary veteran comic Lenny (Alun Armstrong) when she wants to follow in his footsteps.

Setting a film in the world of horrendously outdated, “how was that ever acceptable?” jokes that made the likes of Bernard Manning a household name is a tricky prospect as it runs the risk of coming off as if it endorses rather than critiques what we see being joked about in the stage sequences.

Its intentions end up feeling like a noble examination of accepted comedic norms gone by rather than any sort of celebration. Nevertheless watching Funny Cow get down in the comedic dirt for cheap hits from a belly-laughing audience makes for uncomfortable viewing.

Peake’s layered, all-or-nothing performance is undoubtedly the glue that holds this scrappy little film together, embodying with affecting nuance the sadness underneath that bawdy, larger-than-life armour that she uses to survive – her performance works hand-in-hand with director Adrian Shergold’s authentic recreation of the era.

She’s the real reason to seek out what is a disjointed yet distinctive and colourful character study that sends you away with a snapshot of a woman determined to make something of herself and uneasy about the kind of path she chose.