Celebrating Peter Sellers: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

About Celebrating Peter Sellers: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

Peter Sellers is one of the greatest character actors in the history of British cinema; a name to rank alongside Peter Finch, Alec Guinness and Trevor Howard. To mark the centenary of the year of his birth, The Cinema Museum will commence a seasons of six key Sellers performances.

“Is this still the greatest big-screen satire?” asked The Guardian on its 60th anniversary. It is certainly one of director Stanley Kubrick’s best, and sees Sellers playing three major roles – Mandrake, the RAF officer trying to alert the world that his American colleague has started a nuclear conflict, US President Merkin Muffley, and Dr. Strangelove, the psychotic German scientist. He was also due to play Major “King” Kong, the B-52 bomber commander, but his own reluctance and a sprained ankle put paid to this. Surely no other film has made its audience laugh at the idea of humanity’s self-destruction!

Followed by a Q&A discussion with leading film and media experts Peter Kramer, Robert Ross and David Stubbs.

Dr. Andrew Roberts, the curator of the event says: “Selecting the best of Seller’s work was a genuine challenge. At worst, he could be utterly self-indulgent; at his finest, he could variously induce laughter, fear and pain by his expressions alone”.

Doors open at 18.30, for a 19.30 start.

Refreshments will be available in our licensed cafe/bar.