Last year’s surprise documentary hit was about a pair of folk-singing lesbian twins from New Zealand and there is no reason why this fascinating film about “England’s first modern lesbian” shouldn’t be just as popular as “The Topp Twins.”

In the era of Jane Austin, when women were supposed to sit quietly in the corner and look pretty, Anne Lister was off climbing mountains, beating her male business rivals and having hot lesbian sex with the locals, all of which she documented in her secret, coded diaries.

Gay comedian Sue Perkins, “the British Ellen DeGeneres,” traces Anne’s adventures with a light-hearted touch and a keen interest in history and wonders why we never learnt about her in school.