When I left home to go to university, I was haunted by Rita, Sue And Bob Too.

The film version of Andrea Dunbar’s play had just come out in a blaze of controversy.

It painted a shabby picture of Bradford. Largely filmed on Buttershaw estate, the bawdy comedy, about two teenagers romping with a married man, ticked all the boxes when it came to sink-estate cliches. Buttershaw was depicted as a bleak, tatty place where old mattresses rotted in weed-choked gardens, slanging matches spilled on to streets and drunks shouted obscenities from high-rise balconies.

When I went to see the film, with a bunch of mostly southern students, I wanted the ground to swallow me up. I hated it for confirming the negative stereotypes of Bradford at that time. Living among students from all over the country, I soon realised that coming from Bradford was seen as a bit of a joke. Rita, Sue And Bob Too didn’t help. I’ve seen the film several times over the years and, while it still makes me cringe, I quite enjoy its raw humour. What’s most striking is that it raises issues about class, casual sex, poverty and race, but doesn’t offer judgements or solutions. Andrea Dunbar, a teenage mother living on a council estate in the grip of mass unemployment, simply wrote about what she knew, just as she did with her first play, The Arbor.

Two decades after Rita, Sue And Bob Too was greeted with a protest by angry Buttershaw residents, a new film based on the late playwright’s work has been shot on the estate.

On Saturday, I watched a scene from The Arbor, a largely autobiographical play Andrea wrote when she was 15, being filmed on the street where she lived. There was something very moving about this scene, a bitter row between a drunk father and his family, unfolding just yards from the house where Andrea grew up.

Director Clio Barnard has visited Buttershaw over a lengthy period and appears to have gained the trust of people living there, but it remains to be seen how the estate will be represented in the film. “I hope they get it right this time,” said one resident, appearing as an extra. “We don’t want to be humiliated again.”

Now that Bradford is the world’s first City of Film, a title bestowed by UNESCO this year, it’s not just Buttershaw’s reputation that’s at stake. Here’s hoping The Arbor will offer something more substantial than the usual sink-estate cliches.