Hollywood star Woody Harrelson will tonight recreate his evening of drunken madness in London - when he vandalised a taxi and spent the night in a cell - and broadcast it LIVE to 500 cinemas

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For taxi driver Les Dartnell, the punter who flagged him down in Piccadilly in the early hours was just another welcome fare on a slow night back in June 2002.

Welcome, that is, until he started behaving weirdly and demanding to be let out of the cab, barely minutes into the journey.

‘I said “That’s fine mate, but we’re in the middle of a road with four lanes of traffic so let me pull over first”,’ Mr Dartnell recalled.

Lost In London, starring Hollywood A-listers Woody Harrelson, Owen Wilson, and country singer Willie Nelson, is to be shot on the streets of the capital

‘I didn’t have a clue then who this bloke was, but I was happy for him to get out because he was acting very strangely.’

What happened next is the subject of a film, Lost In London, starring Hollywood A-listers Woody Harrelson, Owen Wilson, and country singer Willie Nelson, to be shot on the streets of the capital from 2am tomorrow and streamed live to more than 500 cinemas in the U.S. (and just one here — the Picturehouse Central in London).

Mr Dartnell’s passenger was Harrelson — then a 40-year-old actor whose career was in a slump, following his celebrated turn in the TV series Cheers and the controversial film Natural Born Killers.

The film is based on true events of what Harrelson now describes as ‘the worst night of my life’

That evening was, Harrelson says now, ‘the worst night of my life’, in the course of which he smashed up a taxi, was pursued by police, arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage and detained in a police cell, before fleeing back to the U.S.

His antics made headlines at the time — but Les Dartnell is baffled as to how those events could be deemed worthy of recreation and preservation in celluloid.

Speaking from his home in Florida where he now spends winter — he says he got lucky on the stock market — Mr Dartnell, 59, says: ‘I remember it like it was yesterday because there was such a fuss. But this was a simple case of a bloke who’d had too much to drink, or smoke, or whatever, and lost the plot.

Owen Wilson sits in a police van during rehearses near Holborn, Bloomsbury Square and Waterloo Bridge

‘He may have written a script about it, but it would surprise me if he remembered much, because he was totally out of it.’

Harrelson, a self-confessed anarchist and well-known hellraiser in his day, has long been enthusiastic about legalising marijuana. He once lit a joint in an interview and admitted using cocaine, saying ‘it freaks me out’. He is making his debut as writer and director, as well as starring in the film. He thinks Lost In London will be a ground-breaking project of the highest artistic integrity.

The 30-strong cast have been in rehearsal since December, and it will involve a single 100-minute take using one camera in 14 locations across Central London, complete with chase sequences on foot, in cabs and in police cars.

Others, however, might view it as the ultimate vanity project.

So what did happen on June 7, 2002? According to Harrelson it began with an argument between him and his wife, Laura (played in the film by Spooks star Eleanor Matsuura). He took off to a nightclub, the infamous Chinawhite, which, back then, was in Soho. Later, he hailed a taxi, which is where Mr Dartnell comes in.

Harrelson and a female co-star can be seen entangled in what appears to be a brawl with a man in a wheelchair

‘I had picked him up on Regent Street and we got as far as Haymarket when he started going crazy, saying he wanted to get out of the cab.

‘The next thing I know, he’s kicking the door. Somehow he managed to kick the whole thing open, breaking the lock; then he’s off, running down the street. He turned into Pall Mall and then Carlton House Terrace, and all the time I’m following, dodging these traffic cones he’s throwing at me.’

The precision of the itinerary says everything about a London cabbie’s grasp of The Knowledge. What it fails to convey is Mr Dartnell’s disbelief as his errant fare ran away.

‘It was just so pointless because when he’d got into my cab, his agent — or someone who was looking after him at least — told me he was staying in a hotel on Sloane Street.

‘So when he jumped into another cab and legged it, I called the police and told them where to find him.

The 30-strong cast have been in rehearsal since December, and it will involve a single 100-minute take using one camera in 14 locations across Central London, complete with chase sequences on foot, in cabs and in police cars

‘I followed them there, and that was where it really went crazy. There are half-a-dozen police cars coming from all directions. I counted 14 coppers, and he’s still at it, trying to climb some railings.

‘When this WPC finally gets the cuffs on him, she shouts: “Look! It’s Woody Harrelson!” Up until that point everyone, me included, thought he was just some random nutter.’

The actor later said he had lost his temper after Mr Dartnell demanded he pay for damaging an ashtray, something the cabbie disputes. ‘That’s definitely not how I remember it,’ he insists.

Harrelson was later released on bail and left the UK with the criminal damage charge outstanding.

But Harrelson was due back in London to appear in a West End play, On An Average Day. With a criminal prosecution pending, he faced a dilemma.

Why he wants to resurrect it with this ambitious film project is unclear, but he is now enjoying a career revival

‘I got a call from his people in LA asking what they’d need to do to sort it out,’ says Mr Dartnell. ‘I told them I just wanted the damage paid for.’ Which they did.

‘I didn’t want to press charges, but the police insisted on a statement. And that was it. How you make a film out of that is beyond me.’

But not beyond Harrelson, who’s reinterpreted it as fate conspiring to torment him. He says he was desperate to get home, only to find the odds stacked against him, including the British judicial system.

‘The only thing stopping him from getting home was him acting like a lunatic,’ Mr Dartnell laughs. ‘You’re a Hollywood star and you try to run away from an army of policemen. Who in their right mind thinks they’re going to get away with that?’

However, he bears the actor no hard feelings and even went to see him in the play. ‘It was about anger management. Afterwards, I went to meet him backstage. It was nice for my wife, because she got to meet Hugh Grant, too.

After the success of The Hunger Games franchise, the TV series True Detective and a new Planet Of The Apes sequel — Harrelson's confidence is, presumably, riding high

‘In many ways we’re similar people, and in other circumstances I reckon we’d have been good mates.

‘I definitely don’t bear the bloke any malice. We all do stupid things in life and we move on. Life’s too short to worry about a broken cab door.’

Harrelson, now 55, has conceded that he was ‘an ****hole’ that night. ‘I guess it really was one of those nights that I would have gone to quite a lot of trouble to erase from my life,’ he said this week.

Why he wants to resurrect it with this ambitious film project is unclear, but now enjoying a career revival — after the success of The Hunger Games franchise, the TV series True Detective and a new Planet Of The Apes sequel — his confidence is, presumably, riding high.

Harrelson, now 55, has conceded that he was ‘an ****hole’ that night

Mr Dartnell says of that night: ‘I found the entire thing hilarious. It was like something out of the Keystone Kops when the police got involved. With Woody running all over the place but getting nowhere.’

Bizarrely, their paths crossed again a few years ago as Mr Dartnell waited to board a flight in Los Angeles.

‘A big entourage went past us and sure enough, there was Woody.

‘I thought to myself: “We can’t help bumping into each other, can we?”

‘Now he’s back in London, working, and I’m here in the American sunshine. I doubt anyone would have predicted that 15 years ago.’