The Argus: Brighton Festival 2012

It must be a nerve-wracking experience for a director to show a new documentary to its real-life subject for the first time. And for artist Jeremy Deller to get a critique from performance artist Bruce Lacey in front of a packed Corn Exchange must have been pretty uncomfortable.

But while Lacey was complaining about scenes which had hit the cutting room floor, what was up on the screen was still pretty amazing.

Deller and co-director Nick Armstrong captured the last of a dying breed - a true English eccentric and satirist who once took a robot to the Royal Albert Hall, worked with the Goons and The Beatles, and even now holds arts happenings around his Norfolk home.

He's a contrary character - a man who dreams of being an astronaut, and who once made a film imagining a British moon-landing, but was also inspired to be a shaman after seeing the stone circles at Avebury.

While he was taking the mickey out of the adults he was also creating joy for children across the country with touring homemade playgrounds - as captured in some excellent vintage footage.

On screen he was charismatic and engaging, from his first appearance setting rockets off into the atmosphere with dolls tied to them, to arguably his darkest hour - an almost pagan public ritual he performed after his second wife left him.

Introducing the film, Deller was keen to point out that it still wasn't quite finished. But for a rough cut it captured Lacey's message perfectly - to follow your dreams, as you never quite know where they will lead you.