‘If you’re going to play this part, there must be no more talk of death,’ Ian Charleson’s doctor tells him sternly, somewhat missing the point of Hamlet. Andrew Scott makes a convincing Oscar bid in the story of Charleson’s courageous final performance in a production of Shakespeare’s Danish tragedy at the National Theatre. Despite the seemingly elite subject matter, when Elsinore opens it feels deliciously down-to-earth, beginning with Daniel Day-Lewis infamously legging it in the midst of the aforementioned 1989 production as the cast and crew try to wrestle him back onto the stage.

We’re then introduced to Charleson, the Chariots Of Fire and Gandhi star, who is disappointed with the way his career has gone since. The Scottish actor is jealous of the dashing (in more ways than one) Day-Lewis and feels he’s not posh enough to play Hamlet himself. But the production’s director Richard Eyre (Johnny Flynn) disagrees, and Charleson is hired as his replacement. It’s then that he confesses to having AIDS, going ahead with the role regardless, to the horror of his doctor Margaret Johnson (Olivia Colman), a real-life pioneer in the field.

This is bravura stuff from Scott, who gets to go big and loud as Hamlet and be quietly tragic as Ian, while Monica Dolan steals some scenes as no-nonsense stage-door supervisor Linda (sample dialogue: ‘I had Peter O’Toole in a headlock’), and Billie Piper is a hoot as Charleson’s casting director friend Patsy. Initially, at least, the approach is appealingly intimate and unvarnished, with Mike Eley’s handheld camerawork giving it an aptly fidgety feel, in keeping with its running-out-of-time protagonist, while the way it captures and celebrates the architectural oddities of the National Theatre is wonderful.

Written by Pride’s Stephen Beresford and directed by Simon Stone (The Dig, The Woman In Cabin 10), the film balances comedy and tragedy in a piece that’s all about seizing the day. Understandably, Johnson takes her effort to extend lives desperately seriously, but Elsinore shows that acting can be noble, life-enhancing work too. As the film progresses, it loses some of its idiosyncrasy and goes shamelessly for the emotional jugular (and no doubt awards-contention), but Scott deserves his moment, and hopefully Charleson would approve.

Elsinore is screened at BFI London Film Festival, Wednesday 7, Friday 9, Friday 16 October; on general release from Friday 29 January.