As Peter Sellers 100th birthday approaches on 8th September, the BBC is airing a variety of programmes from the archives to mark the occasion.
BBC2: Monday 1st September, 11.00pm The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers, the 2004 biographical film based on Roger Lewis’s book. BBC iPlayer link
BBC4: Tuesday 2nd September, from 9.00pm The Peter Sellers Story, a 1995 Arena three-part film portrait, incorporating home movies, film clips and interviews. BBC iPlayer link
BBC4: Wednesday 3rd September, 00.25am Parkinson, the interviews Michael Parkinson looks back on his interviews with Peter Sellers BBC iPlayer link
BBC4: Thursday 4th September, 10.00pm The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers
Radio 4 Extra Monday 8th September, 3.30pm, 9.30pm and 05.30am Dreams; Peter Sellers at Sea. Part 1 of a dramatised story of the making of the movie Ghost in the Noonday Sun. BBC Sounds link
Radio 4 Extra Monday 8th September, 10.00am, 4.00pm, midnight Sellers in the Attic – Archive on 4 from 2010, Glenn Mitchell examines rare and lesser-known recordings of Peter Sellers. BBC Sounds link
Radio 4 Extra Tuesday 9th September, 3.30pm, 9.30pm and 05.30am Disaster; Peter Sellers at Sea – part 2 of the Ghost in the Noonday Sun drama. BBC Sounds link
Radio 4 Extra Tuesday 9th September, 10.00am, 4.00pm, midnight The Best of British Laughs, Peter Sellers on the Goons – Peter Sellers talks to Barry Took about starring in The Goon Show, from 1971. BBC Sounds link (The original was 30 minutes, this is 15.)
Radio 4 Extra Tuesday 9th September, 10.15am, 4.15pm, 00.15am Movies with a Message – I’m Alright Jack – David Puttnam looks at the impact of the 1959 Peter Sellers film. BBC Sounds link
Radio 4 Extra Tuesday 9th September, 10.00am, 4.30pm, 00.30am Dad Made Me Laugh – Peter Sellers’ son Michael tells Sally Magnusson about the ups and downs of growing up with a famous funny father. From 2005. BBC Sounds link
Radio 4 Extra Wednesday 10th September, 10.00am, 4.00pm and midnight Peter Sellers Sings. Ed Stewart talks to Peter Sellers’s record producer George Martin about the creation of his music comedy albums. From 1997. BBC Sounds link
Also on the steam radio, a recent episode of Front Row featured the BFI’s Dick Fiddy and biographer Robert Ross discussing Peter Sellers’ legacy. It is available here on BBC Sounds. (Overseas listeners who no longer have access to BBC Sounds should be able to find this one in Podcast form)
The September issue of Goon Show News is on its way to our members. Yes, it’s still August, but it includes notice of the GSPS annual meeting on 13th September. At least the editor can have a few extra days off before he starts work on the December issue.
What’s in the issue? The main topic is Peter Sellers, as we celebrate what would have been his 100th birthday on the 8th of September. The front cover portrait was painted by his daughter, Sarah Sellers, and there are several articles about him and his work, including one also written by Sarah.
We also have memories of the GSPS founder Mike Coveney and member Mike Childs, who have passed away recently. And, there’s plenty more in the way of news, letters, and articles, spread over 40 pages.
The clickable Kicking up the Archives feature from this issue is here.
The newsletter is published quarterly and sent to all of our members. If you’re not getting it, why not join the GSPS. You won’t be disappointed.
In June this year, an episode of The Footage Detectives on Talking Pictures TV was a Goon Show Special which featured our own Mark Cousins and some rare bits of Goon Madness film featuring Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine. You can catch up with that episode here on the TPTV Encore stream (free account required).
The Talking Pictures Festival of Film is being held at the Hebden Bridge Picture House, West Yorkshire, over the 11th/12th October weekend, and Mark will be one of the speakers on the Saturday (at 3.25pm (30 minutes including Goons reel). TPTV tell us that tickets are getting scarce, and they expect it to sell out, so it’s time to get yours.
There will also be Goon Show Presentation Society stand at the event on Saturday. We’ll happily chat to anyone about the Goon Show, what we do, what we have to offer and why you should consider joining us. Come and say hah-lo.
Details and tickets for The Talking Pictures Festival of Film & TV Roadshow at Hebden Bridge, are available here.
After two separate Goon Show performances on stage in the North of England this year, we’re pleased to hear of another show being performed. This time it’s a bit further afield, though I suppose that rather depends on where you’re standing. The venue is the Allen Hall theatre in the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. The dates are August 14 and 15th.
Spike Milligan Productions have given the okay for the performance of Foiled by President Fred. The show is a student production as part of the theatre studies course. It will be a performed with a great deal of enthusiasm, recreating the studio recording of the script, as gas meter inspector Seagoon braves a trip to Latin America during the revolution season.
A progress report has arrived from the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York,where the collection of the GSPS archives is being compiled.
The keeper of the archives, Gary Brannan, has torn himself away from important work on the Galton and Simpson archive and started a first-stage catalogue. It covers 19 boxes of archives so far, including newsletters, other collated records, script collections, and original collected materials. There are another eight boxes waiting to be added at this stage.
Access to the collection can be arranged. It’s already had a few visitors, including one proper external academic who’s doing PhD research.
Three Lost Sellers Shorts and Digital Restorations to be premiered at the British Film Institute and released in August
Lots of “new” Peter Sellers material is to be shown at the BFI’s forthcoming Sellers season, including the long awaited “Lost Shorts” starring Sellers as Hector Dimwittie. Some of these titles will also be released by Studiocanal. … And there will also be a Peter Sellers box-set with these titles and more!
Two Way Stretch – A New Digital 4k restoration – available soon at studiocanal.co.uk Insomnia Is Good For You – The World Premiere of the 4K Restoration.
Being shown at the BFI: Wednesday 06 August 2025 20:45 & Wednesday 13 August 2025 18:10
The finest Goon Show related podcast in our planetary system, Goon Pod, has reached the milestone of 200 episodes. Congratulations Tyler!
Show number 200 was a look at the 1991 Radio 2 documentary, At Last The Go On Show. Guests on the podcast included that programme’s producer Dirk Maggs and the man who pulled together the clips for it, Ted Kendall.
To listen to this show, search for ‘Goon Pod’ and subscribe on whichever podcast app or service you habitually use. If you don’t habitually use any of those, then there are recent episodes at the foot of the page. Alternatively, click on the Goon Pod logo above to be taken to a suitable corner of the web where all the episodes are available.
This week, for Christmas, a heart-warming festive treat full of joy, goodwill and Peter Sellers at his cuddliest. ONLY JOKING.Actually, it’s Carol for Another Christmas, Rod Serling’s bleak, angry, Cold War reworking of A Christmas Carol . Conceived as the opening salvo in a run of UN-friendly TV specials, the film is a full-throated warning against isolationism, nuclear brinkmanship and the idea that minding your own business ever ends well. Xerox paid for it, ABC aired it ad-free on 28 December 1964, viewers and critics were divided about it, and it then disappeared for nearly 50 years.Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz (Cleopatra) in his only television outing, the film stars Sterling Hayden as Daniel Grudge, a wealthy American industrialist who hates foreign aid, diplomacy and the United Nations in equal measure. On Christmas Eve he clashes with his liberal nephew Fred (Ben Gazzara) and is hauled through a series of visions featuring war dead, nuclear devastation and, most memorably, Peter Sellers as “Imperial Me” – a cowboy-Santa demagogue preaching radical individualism. It was Sellers’ first screen appearance after his near-fatal heart attack earlier that year.Also featuring Eva Marie Saint, Robert Shaw, Steve Lawrence, Pat Hingle, Britt Ekland and music by Henry Mancini, the film is verbose, didactic and relentlessly grim – and all the more fascinating for it.Joining Tyler is Tilt Araiza (The Sitcom Club / Jaffa Cakes for Proust), drawing parallels with Planet of the Apes, The Prisoner and unpacking Serling and the social and political climate just one year after after the assassination of JFK… looking at how things came together to produce this Christmas curio.
In Character: Peter Sellers The British Film Institute season
by Mark Cousins
“For me, the most influential actor in films was Peter Sellers” – Robin Williams
Marking what would have been his one hundredth birthday, for their Sellers retrospective season the BFI’s Justin Johnson and Dick Fiddy have worked hard to choose performances which include his breakthrough roles, formative years and greatest hits together with some rare and seldom shown material.
Rather than provide full details of every film, I have just focused on the basics. Full information on the BFI’s programme can be found on their website, together with more information on each of the films and screenings. BFI Website
For those who can’t get there, you might like to know about the BFI Player where you can stream other Sellers films including: Mr Topaz, Let’s Go Crazy, The Optimists of Nine Elms, Penny Points To Paradise, The Slappiest Days Of Our Lives and The Blockhouse. BFI Player
The season runs throughout August. Coincident with this, on 4th August Studiocanal will be releasing:
There will also be a Peter Sellers box-set with these titles and more!
The BFI’s screenings are as follows:
Sellers In Context Tuesday 05 August 2025 18:20 The season opens with this introductory event which takes the form of a richly illustrated discussion. Invited guests will explore Sellers’ iconic roles, his comedic brilliance and his lasting influence on film and modern comedy.
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The Ladykillers UK 1955 – (97 mins) Digital 4K Saturday 02 August 2025, Monday 11 August 2025 & Tuesday 19 August 2025 Sellers’ A breakthrough role that allowed him to work with his hero and inspiration, Alec Guinness.
Shown together with…. An Audio Recording 1955 – (7 mins) Sellers’ own privately recorded promotional audio recording in which he impersonates the entire cast and the director!
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The Smallest Show on Earth – 1957 (80 mins) 35mm Saturday 02 August 2025 18:15 & Sunday 17 August 2025 15:30 Sellers as projectionist Percy Quill alongside Bernard Miles and Margaret Rutherford.
Screened with… In Focus – Number One: The Super Secret Service – 1953 (24 mins) Video A rare chance to see Sellers with Graham Stark and Dick Emery in this short by Goon Show script writers Spike Milligan and Larry Stephens.
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The Naked Truth – 1957 (91 mins) 35mm Sunday 03 August 2025 15:00 & Wednesday 13 August 2025 20:30 An early Sellers classic with Terry-Thomas which gives him the chance to play many other characters.
Followed by… Case of the Mukkinese Battle Horn – 1956 (29 mins) 35mm Sellers and Milligan with Dick Emery in a knockabout short written by Goon Show writer Larry Stephens with producers Harry Booth and Jon Pennington.
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I’m All Right Jack – 1959 (105 mins) Digital Tuesday 05 August 2025 20:20 & Saturday 16 August 2025 12:20 A big breakthrough film for Sellers which set him on the road to real film stardom with the creation of one of his best remembered characters, Union Shop Steward Fred Kite. A real British comedy classic with co-stars Terry-Thomas and a host of supporting character actors.
Screened with… The Running, Jumping and Standing Still film – 1960 (11 mins) Digital A hugely influential experimental short devised by Sellers and shot on his own 16mm camera. Nominated for the 1959 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short, it influenced director Dick Lester when he made The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night.
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Two Way Stretch (New Restoration) – 1960 (87 mins) Digital 4k restoration Wednesday 06 August 2025 20:45 & Wednesday 13 August 2025 18:10 Sellers in prison with David Lodge and Bernard Cribbins overseen by Lionel Jeffries
Followed by… World Premiere of 4K Restoration: Insomnia Is Good For You –1957 (26 mins) Digital 4k restoration One of three lost shorts featuring Sellers as everyman Hector Dimwittie, in which he spends a weekend worrying about a meeting with his boss and is unable to sleep for 62 hours.
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Heavens Above 1963 (118 mins) Digital 4k restoration Saturday 09 August 2025 14:50 & Monday 18 August 2025 20:25 In another Boulting brothers’ film, the wrong vicar is appointed to a parish and tries to implement Christian values.
Screened together with… Cold Comfort – 1957 (16 mins) Video Another lost short featuring Sellers as Hector Dimwittie who catches a cold and tries many ways of treating it.
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World Premiere of 4K Restoration: Only Two Can Play – 1962 (106 mins) Digital 4k restoration Monday 25 August 2025 15:00 & Friday 15 August 2025 18:15 + intro by Vic Pratt, Producer, BFI Home Entertainment Caught between his ambitious wife and a glamorous amateur actress, Welsh librarian John Lewis is caught with the seven-year itch.
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The Wrong Arm of the Law – 1963 (94 mins) Digital 4k restoration Tuesday 12 August 2025 18:10 & Saturday 23 August 2025 18:00 Sellers is ‘Pearly’ Gates, an underworld kingpin, who enters into an uneasy alliance with the police to thwart a gang of Australian crooks muscling-in on the local territory by posing as police officers.
Shown alongside… World Premiere of 4K Restoration: Dearth of A Salesman – 1957 (30 mins) The third lost Sellers shorts as Hector Dimwittie, this time as a salesman.
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Dr Strangelove – 1963 (95 mins) Digital 4k Saturday 09 August 2025 12:15, Friday 22 August 2025 20:50, Monday 25 August 2025 18:10 & Thursday 28 August 2025 20:45 A Sellers classic in which he plays three roles, but steals the film with Dr. Strangelove with some memorable, mostly improvised set pieces.
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Being There – 1979 (130 mins) Digital Sunday 03 August 2025 18:10, Tuesday 26 August 2025 18:00 & Saturday 30 August 2025 20:25 In what has been referred to as Sellers’ swansong, he is Chance, the gardener. Arguably the perfect end to Sellers’ film career in which he plays a faceless nonentity who becomes both a celebrity and a presidential advisor.
Shown together with… Promotional film with director Hal Ashby – 1979 (3 mins) Video
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A Shot in the Dark USA – 1964 (102 mins) Digital Sunday 24 August 2025 12:20 & Wednesday 27 August 2025 18:20 The second Pink Panther film to feature Sellers as Inspector Clouseau
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The Return of the Pink Panther – 1975 (114 mins) 35mm Sunday 24 August 2025 14:50 & Wednesday 27 August 2025 20:40 Arguably the best film in the revival of the Pink Panther series
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Peter Sellers: Oddities and Rarities (100 mins) Monday 18 August 2025 18:15 A bespoke collection of Sellers’ TV appearances including interviews and performances with, Spike Milligan, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Anthony Newley and Eric Sykes together with some footage of Sellers’ home movies.
Together with… The Whistling Spy Enigma. A filmed TV version of a Goon Show filmed for Secombe and Friends but only shown in part.
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In addition, the BFI are showing the following BFI Families screenings:
Tom Thumb – 1958 (95 mins) 35mm Saturday 02 August 2025 12:00 & Sunday 10 August 2025 12:00 Sellers paired with Terry-Thomas as a pair of thieves for this telling of the Grimms fairytale
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The Optimists of Nine Elms – 1973 (111 mins) 35mm Saturday 23 August 2025 12:10 & Saturday 30 August 2025 12:10 This charming and underrated family film sees Sellers as an itinerant busker who befriends two children. An understated and underrated comedy laced with melancholic charm.
My summary – One of the most extensive and well thought through selections of some of the best performances from throughout Sellers’ career. We can all say, why aren’t they showing for example; The Millionairess, Lolita, Never Let Go or There’s A Girl In My Soup. But even with quite a big expanse of slots to fill, so diverse was Sellers’ career that it’s impossible to please everyone. It is however especially nice to see a few rarities screened in amongst the classics and favourites. Hat’s off to the BFI for getting it right!
The BBC are broadcasting a radio play on Friday 4th July which should appeal to students of Goon Show history. 1977, by Sarah Wooley, tells the story of the composer Angela Morley in the years after she transitioned from being the Goon Show’s Wally Stott. In particular, it’s set at the time she was writing of the Watership Down movie score. It was first broadcast in 2015 as part of the Drama on 4 series.
The programme is on BBC Radio 4 Extra, on Friday 4th July at 3.00 pm. It will be available to stream for the following 30 days from the programme’s BBC Sounds webpage or the Sounds app.
Angela Morley (photo from angelamorley.com)
Also worthy of a read is this blog post in which the writer explains the background to the play.
The 2025 annual GSPS member’s meeting is set for Saturday, 13th September. Once again, we’ll be gathering within earshot of the Spike Milligan Memorial Bench and the Lodge House which houses the Spike Milligan Archive. The venue, for the fourth year, is Stephens House and Gardens in Finchley, North London.
The event will run from 10.30am to 4.30pm, with a break for lunch in the Inky’s Café.
As well as our AGM, we are planning to have another quiz, a requested performance (or table read) of Tatter’s Castle (info), the initial Goon Show or Crazy People trial recording, and a chat with an author currently penning a brand new book on The Goon Show!
Oh, and bring along some of that lovely moolah you have stitched inside your mattress as we will be offering a variety of books, tapes and CDs for sale with the proceeds going back to society funds. Jane and Silé will also have new Spike related merchandise available, including the 2026 calendars!
Last year’s Jet Propelled Guided NAAFi reading
It isn’t necessary to book a place at this meeting. However, so we can judge how many teas and biscuits to bring in, it would be helpful to let us know you’re coming by sending a message through the form below.
Stephens House & Gardens 17 East End Rd, London N3 3QE
The venue is accessible for disabled visitors, and there are a few parking places can be reserved for those who might need one.
CAFE ON-SITE for coffee, tea and lunches. BY BUS Buses 13, 125, 143, 460 and 326 stop nearby. BY UNDERGROUND Nearest underground station: Finchley Central on the High Barnet branch of the Northern Line. On leaving the station walk up to Regents Park Road, turn left and, at the A504 junction, turn left again into East End Road. The house is on the left.
The Goon Show Preservation Society 