IT'S Billy Elliot grows up and has sex with Lady Penelope, as the more mischievous might describe this latest drama from director David Mackenzie.

He's the man who gave us the custard sex scene - if you saw Young Adam with Ewan McGregor and Emily Mortimer, you'll remember it and never look at a tin of Bird's Custard in the same way - and Hallam Foe displays a similiar fascination with kinky sexual matters.

Jamie Bell, stripping off and drawing circles in lipstick round his nipples, is a big boy now and instead of dancing around as little Billy Elliot, becomes Hallam Foe. He's a troubled young man who's never got over his mother's death and keeps a large picture of her in his treetop hideaway. He likes nothing better than a game of sexual I Spy but matters go too far when he tries his Peeping Tom act on stepmum Verity (Forlani). He ends up having sex with her.

Mixed up more than ever, he runs away to Edinburgh and continues his voyeuristic tendencies on the rooftops.

He's especially interested in Kate (Myles, alias Lady Penelope in the dreadful Thunderbirds movie) who bears an uncanny resemblance to his dead mother. He follows her to the hotel where she works and gets a job in the kitchen.

At night, he follows her home to spy on her romping with the hotel manager (Sives). Rather than be shocked by his nocturnal spying, she finds it a bit of a turn-on. Soon he's kissing Kate, but it takes a dip in a freezing loch and attempted murder to finally snap him out of his mother complex.

Bell happily shakes off his Billy Elliot image for an adult role that he tackles with assurance and conviction, while Myles as the object of his desire and Forlani as his wicked stepmum also enter into the spirit of things with undiluted passion. Hallam Foe may not everyone's cup of torrid tea but those looking for a quirky, sexy, voyeuristic experience should come away satisfied.

Stars: Jamie Bell, Sophia Myles, Ciaran Hinds, Jamie Sives, Maurice Roeves, Ewen Bremner, Claire Forlani
Running time: 95 mins
Rating: Four stars