The life and death of Peter Sellers

Herald rating: ***

It's tempting to say that Geoffrey Rush heads an all-star cast in this TV-movie portrait of the saddest funny-man. But like Sellers himself, Rush is the all-star cast, playing no less than 16 characters from the comedian's on- and off-screen life. Celebrity biopics - Ray and De-Lovely spring to mind - usually tell of a rotten human being who is a great artist and suggest we should love them for that. You'll learn that the star of The Millionairess, Dr Strangelove, Being There and the Pink Panther was an insecure man who feared the world would uncover his secret. There was no real Peter Sellers, only his characters.

Parading through his story are the people who touched his life: his adored mother and disdained father; Pink Panther director Blake Edwards (John Lithgow), his first wife (Emily Watson), who drew lines in the sand and paid the price; Stanley Kubrick (Stanley Tucci); his trusted psychic (Stephen Fry); and Britt Ekland (Charlize Theron), 60s sex symbol and his second wife.

Sellars was a flawed genius: love his movies but you're unlikely to want to spend an evening with him in the restaurant at the end of the universe.

Special features include a first-rate commentary with Rush and director Hopkins discussing their subject rather than the usual self-indulgent twaddle about characterisation and production; a discussion between screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely about writing technique that ... oh, sorry, fell asleep.

* DVD, Video rental out now