...and the new drama being made about it

A new audio drama about Peter Sellers has been announced on what would have been his 100th birthday  today.

Described as a 'darkly comic’ piece, Blue Peter chronicles conversations between Rula Lenska and the bright blue bust of Sellers’ head she owns in real life. 

Lenska’s first big-screen role was in 1974 when she was 26, starring opposite  Sellers in a film called Soft Beds, Hard Battles. 

The comic played several roles in the farce, which was set in a Parisian brothel in Nazi-occupied France and revolved around sex workers bumping off the high-ranking German officers  who visited.

A cast was made of Sellers’ head for the prosthetics needed to create  his characters –  ranging from British Major Robinson to Adolf Hitler – and it is that which Lenska owns. 

‘He was very self-effacing and funny, but seemed to lack confidence,’  she recalled in a 2013 Daily Mail interview. ‘I acquired the cast from the costume department and decorated it. It’s moved with me several times and never once been chipped.’

Actor Barnaby Eaton-Jones spotted Lenska posing with the bust online and wondered: ‘What would happen if that head could talk to her?’

He was thus inspired to create Blue Peter, pitching it first to Lenska herself and then to longtime collaborator Kenton Hall, who wrote the script.

‘I am always open to Barnaby’s messages expecting delightfully mad ideas, and I am never disappointed,’ Hall said. ‘Imagine my sheer glee when I received his treatment for Blue Peter.’

Lenska says of the project:  ‘I am very proud to have known Peter and to have been part of this special. He was unique and brilliant… a genuine legend’.

Blue Peter  – described as a ‘witty, moving half-hour play that blends isolation, memory, and hallucination’ will be released later this year exclusively on Heard Plus, a yet-to-be-launched streaming service for audio projects. Eaton-Jones will provide the voice of Sellers.

Published: 8 Sep 2025