Mr. Strangelove_ A Biography of Peter Sellers - Ed Sikov [62]
The lithe and virile boy dances with animated cartoons and claymation animals, and all is well in his childhood until his father takes him near the Black Swamp, “an evil place where horrid birds and animals live.” That’s where Peter and Terry-Thomas come in. Peter’s done up in a fat suit and heavy black fur. Terry wears a domed Zeppo Marx hat. “I like you,” says Terry to the father. “So do I,” says Peter, leaning in close with a vocal insinuation entirely lacking in Terry’s previous line delivery. “I don’t like the looks of those fellows,” says Dad after the villains leave. “I thought they were kind of nice,” says Russ.
Peter, affecting a bizarre gypso-Fagin accent, plays a total dolt, Terry as well, though somewhat less so. They decide to bump Tom off by taking him to the edge of the swamp, tossing a coin in, and telling Tom to go chase it. Tom skips happily into the swamp and promptly falls into the muck. Unfortunately, he’s saved by the Queen of the Forest and another hour of the film ensues, but it ends happily after a character named Woody teaches Tom how to kiss a girl. It was the 1950s, after all.
Up the Creek was released on November 11, 1958, tom thumb on December 24. But by then Peter was back on the BBC with The Goon Show’s ninth series, and oh, yes, he had also been starring for four months in a West End play.
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A year earlier, the producer Robert L. Joseph had been talking to Alec Guinness about starring as an Arabian sultan in George Tabori’s comedy Brouhaha; Peter Brooks was supposed to direct. By July 1957, that plan had fallen apart, but in July 1958, the play opened. Peter Hall directed. Peter Sellers starred.
As Anne Sellers noted, Peter had long been nursing a not-so-secret desire to add theater to radio, television, film, cabaret, and music hall. Tabori’s thin farce, entirely dependent on the ridiculous Sultan of Huwaiyat, provided the perfect vehicle:
Huwaiyat has fallen on hard times. To extract foreign aid from both the Americans and the Soviets, the Sultan concocts a revolution.
By signing on to Brouhaha, Peter took the risk (to reap the glory) of making his legitimate-theatrical debut in a play in which he’d be onstage almost all the time. There would be touches of slapstick and lots of costume and personality and accent changes, and he’d be given relatively free rein to improvise dialogue and bits of comedy business at will. All of this came with a price, of course. For an actor, any role onstage, especially on Broadway or the West End, demands an extraordinary commitment of time and energy. Still, Peter took on the challenge and the work, agreeing to appear in Brouhaha for at least seven months, all the while continuing his radio and film careers. In addition to the regular evening performances of Brouhaha there would be two shows on Saturday night as well as a Thursday matinee.
After previewing in Brighton for three weeks, Brouhaha opened in London. From its printing presses 3,000 miles away, the New York Times was delighted. Dateline London, August 27: “Gales of laughter greeted George Tabori’s new comedy Brouhaha, which opened at the Aldwych Theatre tonight. It left the newspaper reviewers indulgently tickled, too. But the laughter and the warm newspaper notices were more for the players, particularly the star, Peter Sellers, than for the play.”
It hadn’t been an easy road to opening night. For one thing, Peter decided he didn’t like one of the young actors and refused to rehearse with him. Then, at the dress rehearsal, he declined to provide the proper cue lines. “I can’t stay,” Peter Hall confided to a cast member, “because if I lose my temper with Peter, he’ll walk out and close the play.” So the director left the theater rather than argue with the star.