Roger Lewis on The Life & Death of Peter Sellers

Goon Pod

The Life & Death of Peter Sellers caused something of a stir upon original publication in 1994. Rather than being a dispassionate account of the actor's life and work it leaned in quite heavily on his failings as a man and the author himself wasn't afraid to offer his personal views.

That author, Roger Lewis, joins Tyler this week as the book is out in a brand new edition to coincide with Sellers' centenary this year. Roger has written a new afterword: The Centennial Sellers and Steve Coogan supplied a foreword.

They discussed Sellers' strengths and weaknesses, his films, the Goon Show, people he worked with and fell in and out with and tried to nail down what it was about his self-destructive melancholy private personality that so absorbed Roger early on in the writing of the book. Alexander Walker comes in for a bit of a kicking too! There's also quite a bit about the film of the book and speculations about what Sellers might have done had he lived beyond 1980.

Added to this, Roger talks about his previous book on Charles Hawtrey which is being reissued next year and the book he is currently engaged upon: Victoria Wood, and the women in comedy who influenced and shaped her unique talent.