“I’ve known Jim for about five years on and off,” says Thomas, “and he was kind enough to show a rough draft to me. I tried to buy it straight away.”

What appealed to Thomas was what appealed to the book’s legion of readers (published in paperback last year, it is still on the bestselling tables in most British book shops). It is the story of a guy called Pete (Ifans), whose life starts to unravel, partly because his business is going down the tube, partly because he and his wife are unable to have the baby they want - and because the problems in that department seem to be his. Pete’s creative accountant, Deeny - played by Shakespeare in Love star Joseph Fiennes - puts him in touch with a very rich Russian called Mr Kant (Steven Berkoff). Mr Kant inexplicably - well, not so inexplicably: he turns out to have a hidden agenda - wants to sink huge amounts of money into his business. He also has a startlingly beautiful assistant called Masha (played in the film by the startlingly beautiful Tara Fitzgerald). Before long, the links between Masha and Pete are more than just ‘beeznis’ (the one English word Mr Kant knows). Plus the rescue plan set up by Deeny turns out to have a pretty hefty sting in its tale.

Rhys Ifans as Pete.

Throw into the mix a well-endowed office assistant called Charlie (played by British television bad girl Dani Behr), whose rather direct approach Pete is unable to resist; and a slightly barmy free-market guru played by Keith Allen (the corpse in Shallow Grave, the sheep-shagger in Twin Town) and you have something which movie audiences should likewise find it hard to resist.

It took, however, a good year after the book’s publication before the project finally came together (shooting on Rancid Aluminium, the movie, began in November 1998). One problem was Hawes’ determination not to see the book vanish into development hell: that’s what happened to White Merc, which was optioned by a major UK production company when it first came out in 1996 and has yet to progress even so far as script stage.

Joseph Fiennes as the devious Deeny.

“They’ve had it three or four years now and it still hasn’t been done,” says Hawes. “So, with this one, I decided that I wanted to go independent and know who I was working with right from the start.”

This turned out to be producers Michael Parker and Mark Thomas of Fiction Factory, who have a string of TV and features to their credit (Thomas was executive producer on the recent Fox Searchlight film Dreaming of Joseph Lees), but who retain the hands-on, seat-of-the-pants approach Hawes wanted to see brought to Rancid Aluminium. Also, they’d already met, which helped.