The Peter Sellers Story - As He Filmed It

At one point during this unique television biography, it’s subject Peter Sellers is told by an interviewer that she felt she knew actors she interviewed a little bit because she’d seen them on screen but this wasn’t the case with him. Sellers replied that he was never himself on screen because he thought it would the dullest thing imaginable. There are times when sitting though ninety minutes of what are basically his home movies that I know exactly what he meant.

Culled from a BAFTA nominated three-part Arena documentary from 1995, this piece effectively describes Sellers’ life, from circa 1948, by using material taken from his own 16mm camera. It dispenses with a formal narration as events are described in a series of interviews with the man himself, former wives, actors, agents, P.A.’s, his children and fellow Goons Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan.

There is an odd, almost creepy fell to this piece, but then it soon becomes apparent that Sellers was a strange, if very talented bloke.

Despite the vast majority of the footage being his own work, this piece does not set out lionise him; at times it is quite critical. We see him at his various homes with his various wives, there’s a fair proportion of stage-managed slapstick on display. We see shots of him on film sets, larking with Princess Margaret or Prince Charles and hobnobbing with various stars including Sophia Loren with whom he became obsessed.

However the commentary is far more compelling than the footage, as tales emerge about him refusing to appear in the same shot as Orson Welles while making a movie, or telling a famous film director that he was intent on stealing his wife. There are plenty more examples of this sort of outlandish behaviour.

We hear that Sellers was doted on as a child, following the death of elder brother and of his close relationship with his mother and her hostility towards his first wife. Also highlighted is the breakdown of his marriages due to his unpredictable, sometimes childish behaviour.

For all the interest held in these snippets of dialogue, you may still be left with sort of feeling you get when a visiting a distant relative when the slide projector comes out, mildly interested for a few minutes and desperate to escape shortly thereafter. Sellers presumably didn’t make these films for public consumption and quite frankly I’d rather remember the performances he did intend us to see rather than this personal footage.

Perhaps that’s why it feels slightly uncomfortable to watch. At times it feels rather voyeuristic.

Rating 7 out of 10

The Peter Sellers Story - As He Filmed It airs on BBC TWO on Saturday 24th August at 9:00pm