Quentin Crisp introduces the film, saying that the decision to find someone else to play him was right as they are bound to do it better than he does. He claims "any film, even the worst, is at least better than real life."
The film begins in the late 1920s, where a teen-aged Quentin lives at home with his grumpy middle-class father and adoring mother. He is becoming aware of his sexual identity and realizes that he is not sexually attracted to women. His parents seek medical advice to discover what is "wrong with him", and finally end up sending him to art college to force him into society. At college he befriends a young female art student, but the relationship is strictly platonic. He later meets a transvestite prostitute who introduces him to the local gay hangout, and he discovers the joys of make-up. Fascinated with this discovery, Quentin dyes his hair red and parades his homosexuality like a badge. His father tells him he looks like a male whore, and not opposed to the idea, he begins working as a prostitute. After meeting his first boyfriend, Thumbnails, he leaves home.
In 1930, he gets a job as a commercial artist and moves out of Thumbnail's place, on his own, where he quits prostitution. It has become a mission to express his homosexuality, and as a result he is rejected by almost everyone. He is constantly beaten up and the gay community won't associate with him because he is far too flamboyant, and they are all still in the closet. After he loses his job, he moves in with a ballet teacher and starts teaching tap dancing. In 1939, Quentin is rejected from serving in the military because of his homosexuality. He then begins working as a nude model in a government-funded art school. He is later arrested for soliciting in London, but he turns the situation to his advantage and gives a life-defining speech at his court hearing. He has so many good character witnesses that the case is thrown out of court.
In 1945, Quentin begins his third long-term relationship. His friend from art college has left her Polish lover to become a nun. Her lover though has been institutionalised due to paranoid delusions. Quentin begins visiting him every weekend, splits up with his burly boyfriend, and when the Pole is allowed out to visit him, they become lovers until the Pole hangs himself.
1975, at the end of the film, Quentin shares comments that the "symbols he adopted to express his individuality have become the uniform of all young people". He reminisces over one night of perfect happiness and declares himself one of the "stately homos" of England.
