And, to a degree, Steve Coogan did broadly invent him by virtue of Alan Partridge, the chatshow host from hell.

Like Partridge, Wilson enjoyed a sort of semi-celebrity as a hack on Granada Reports, but the continual round of stories featuring ducks that could round up sheep offended his huge intellect (as he saw it).

When Johnny Rotten first snarled across a half-empty Manchester Free Trade Hall, Wilson interpreted their inconclastic approach as a musical Eldorado.

He seized the zeitgeist and almost single-handedly launched the Manchester scene - awkwardly combining a formidable intelligence with an out-to-lunch management style.

Only Wilson would have thought it was sound business sense to put drug dealers on the door of the failing Hacienda nightclub to avoid trouble.

Only Wilson could refer to Manchester's heady days of Joy Division and the Happy Mondays as living through another renaissance Florence.

And only Wilson could hail drug-addled Happy Monday's frontman Shaun Ryder (Danny Cunningham) as the best poet since WB Yeats.

Coogan's recreation boasts all of the vanity of Partridge but he also nails Wilson's Mancunian burr while perfectly capturing the vital energy of the pompous powerhouse.

Michael Winterbottom's direction never pauses for breath as he chronologically works his way through the unbelievably unbusinesslike world of Wilson.

A highlight is the charting of the drug-powered arc of the Happy Monday's meteoric career until they crashland on Barbados only to snort £200,000 of studio money on crack.

Garishly tracing the rise of Wilson's Factory empire from the humble club beginnings to corporate obesity, this never takes itself too serious or fails to see the joke.

Indeed, Coogan's asides to camera punctuate each ramshackle chapter with a hilariously pretentious comment ("This isn't about me - it's about the music").

Few films manage to capture the shambolic nature of the music and club scene but this manages that difficult stunt with a sense of humour.

You really had to be there. But if you weren't, this is the next best thing.

Tim Evans