The day Peter Sellers kidnapped Jesus

Spare a thought for the man who spent one Christmas coping with a deranged comic genius
By John Antrobus
27th December 2009

The call came on Christmas Eve, probably 1977. 'What are you doing tomorrow?' asked Peter Sellers. 'Not a lot,' I told him. 'Would you like to come and do not a lot with Lynne and me?'

'I'd be delighted,' I said. 'Please, don't be delighted; be depressed,' said Peter. 'That way, there's room for improvement.'

'When would you like me to come?' 'It's not really that I'd like you to come, John - though I've nothing against you, of course.

'It's more that I don't know how to enjoy Christmas. I don't even know how to get through Christmas, and I thought you might have some ideas. I'd pay you, of course.'

'You don't need to pay me. Peter, because you're Jewish, it doesn't mean you can't enjoy Christmas.'

'But it helps.'

'Basically, treat it like any other day.'

'As threatening,' he said. 'You never know which day will be your last. Look, come to lunch.'

'But if you don't really want me...' I protested.

'I don't really want anything. I've got everything that money can buy.'

'But you can't buy the joy of Christmas!' I exclaimed.

'Exactly. Come,' responded Peter. He hung up.

The next morning, Christmas Day, I walked through the deserted streets of Victoria to Stag House, where in this recently-built development (modern, I suppose, for five minutes), Peter Sellers lived on an upper floor.

I found the apartment and rang the bell, and shouted through the letterbox: 'It's the Bexhill Christmas Pudding Hurler!'

Peter opened the door, white-faced. 'Please don't try to make me laugh,' he said. 'Even to smile uses 84 face muscles. I don't work out this early.'

With curiosity, I entered the apartment. It was spacious and quite empty. The furniture - what there was of it - was not art deco, more art stucko, just stuck around on an expanse of white carpet.

'Would you like to remove your shoes?' asked Peter.

'And your belt, braces and false teeth.'

I took off my shoes and gave them to Peter. He threw them against the wall.

'I hate Christmas!' he shouted. 'And while you're here, you'd better stay for Easter.'

'Where's Lynne?' I inquired. 'I strangled her an hour ago,' said Peter. 'You can help me dispose of the body.'

Lynne entered, her un-strangled body radiant, wearing the prettiest of dresses. She gave me a kiss, a smile and a hug, while Peter looked on, appalled.

'Merry Christmas, John,' she said. 'What's merry about it?' drawled Peter. 'Everyone's on holiday. Nobody's making movies.'

'You hate the film industry,' Lynne reminded him.

'There's no industry to hate today,' he replied (it seemed to me, pitifully). 'It's all a big white blank with reindeer.'

'We can make a home movie later, darling,' Lynne said, brightly.

Then, to me: 'Peter's suffering from withdrawal symptoms. There's no production office open today. There's no director he can phone up and fire today, is there darling?'

Peter laughed then said: 'Ouch, that hurt. I will now give you my world-famous impression of a human being.'

He stood there in his pyjamas and dressing gown.

'As opposed to what?' asked Lynne. 'As opposed to another human being. One who is not world-famous.'

'I can't see any difference.'

'Which proves that fame is an illusion,' said Peter.

'I thought it was the impression which is world-famous,' I suggested.

'That's an illusion, too,' Peter said. 'I will get dressed, and we will go for a drive.'

We were driving towards Brighton. Peter was at the wheel of the drophead Bentley - his latest toy - dressed in a long leather coat and a German World War II helmet. The sky was blue, the sun shone upon us, and it was quite chilly.

'You could close the hood, Peter,' suggested Lynne. 'John might be cold.'

'I like John cold,' announced Peter. 'Who wants a hot John?'

The road was empty as we sped along. We were in the countryside, the fields passing us by rapidly.

'Mein Gott!' said Peter, lapsing into Gestapo German to match his outfit. 'See those cows? They are escaped prisoners-of-war!'

He slammed on the brakes, jerking us violently forward.

'Kum!' he shouted, and leapt from the Bentley, now doubtless in his mind a Wehrmacht vehicle, probably the half-track favoured by Erwin Rommel.

Leaping over the five-bar gate, he stood and pointed at the cows dramatically. 'You! Yes you! The game is up, Englishers!'

'Oh, stop mucking about Peter,' said Lynne, stamping her feet to keep warm. We had followed him out of the car and gathered around the gate. 'Come on, or it will be dark before we get to Brighton.'

She looked at me, raising her eyebrows. 'He's like a child. He's either playing games or he's deeply depressed, wondering who he is.'

'Heinrick,' said Peter, addressing me (for I was now Heinrick). 'Which cow would you say is the fake cow?

'Come on, man, you have been on the Spot-A-Fake-Cow course in Berlin: you know all the ploys of escaped Britishers. In one of those cows are two RAF swine, who have been bombing our cities. My collection of Dresden china is ruined! Which cow, Henrick, is the fake?'

'Vell,' I ventured. 'Zat cow at ze back of the field looks very pantomime to me. If you bring in ze bull, that should sort things out quickly.'

'Not for the Britishers. They would love the bull to cover zem. That would tell us nothing, Heinrick.'

A farmer drove up on his tractor. 'What's going on?' he demanded.

The actor had an ability find the comic ability in most situations

'You! Silence when you talk to me! You are harbouring British prisoners of war. There are at least two in your field disguised as a cow.'

'Well, I milked them all this morning,' replied the farmer.

'You were obviously pulling the wrong knobs,' said Peter, bursting into hysterical laughter and collapsing in a heap by the gate. 'Oh, mein Gott! Mein Himmel! Can we do that bit again? I'll try not to laugh next time.'

The farmer looked at him steadily. 'I recognise you,' he said. 'You must be that Peter Sellers.'

'I'm not that Peter Sellers: I'm this Peter Sellers,' said Peter. 'Appearing for a limited season in your field.'

'Never mind that,' said the farmer. 'Merry Christmas, one and all. Would you care to come up to the farm for a hot toddy and a cheese straw with my family?'

'I thought you'd never ask,' replied Peter, staggering to his feet and brushing down his coat.

He mounted the back of the tractor, standing, steadying himself with one arm on the farmer's shoulder. He flung the other arm forward in a dictatorial gesture.
'Advance!' he yelled. 'Cairo next stop!' The tractor started off. We followed in the Bentley. Lynne pressed a button to bring the hood forward.

'He's crackers,' she said. 'Thank God, this is one of his good days.'

In the farmhouse kitchen, we relaxed in the warmth of the cooking range. There was a Christmas tree with pretty coloured lights, and some homemade paper decorations strung across the ceiling with the drying laundry.

We were served a warm toddy - or Peter was, because both Lynne and myself would not take anything with alcohol. We had ginger beer.

The farmer's daughter, who was about eight years old, showed Peter the Christmas crib she had made, containing the Baby Jesus.

'If it had been possible,' said Peter, 'I would like to have adopted the Baby Jesus and to have had him barmitzvahed later on, then sent to Harvard Business School.'

The farmer's wife looked dubious. 'That would have been the end of Christianity,' she said.

'No, it would have put it on a proper business footing, right from the start,' replied Peter. 'But you can't rewrite history, can you ?'

Lynne looked bored. 'We should be going,' she said.

'No,' said Peter. 'Not without Baby Jesus.'

'You could stay here with Baby Jesus until the Twelfth Day of Christmas,' said the little girl. 'That's when it all finishes.'

'I'd like that,' said Peter. 'I'd like to stay here for ever, with Baby Jesus.

'Why should it finish? This is real, Lynne. This is real life. Look at that laundry hanging up there. That's real laundry.

'What happens to our laundry? It disappears, and then turns up in a box, starched and clean. It's like you've killed somebody and they disappear. Then they turn up in a box, all starched and neat, in a box ready for burial.

'Yes, I will have another hot toddy, Mr Farmer. Can I stay here? Upstairs. Have you a little room? A real room, in a real house, with real fields and earth and cows who are not escaped prisoners-of-war.'

'Peter, come along, darling, or we won't get to Brighton before it gets dark.'

'The sooner it gets dark, the sooner it gets light again,' shot back Peter.

'Stop being silly, Peter,' demanded Lynne. 'You are a film star, not a farm hand. It won't work.'

She turned to the farmer. 'Please, tell him to go. We have a life. We have people to meet. We have films to make.'

'Right,' said the farmer. 'Mr Sellers, you must listen to your wife.'

'I'm not going without Baby Jesus,' declared Peter. 'Or the three wise men.'

We were motoring towards Brighton. Lynne was driving. Peter was asleep in the back, beside him the crib, for which he had paid the little girl £50, with Baby Jesus, three wise men, and shepherds and sheep, and a cow - probably containing Roger and Ian, who had baled out of their flaming Lancaster bomber.

I was becoming as mad as Peter Sellers, I decided. Perhaps I was him.

'We'll go to the Grand and see if we can get lunch. We haven't booked. What chance do you think we've got?' asked Lynne.

'Well, with Peter Sellers they'll probably make room for us. It could be fun. I never dreamt I'd be having Christmas lunch in Brighton. At the Grand. With both of you.'

'John,' Lynne said, staring hard at the road. We were heading down a street towards the sea. 'John,' she repeated. 'When he wakes up, it may not be fun. It may be hell. This could be as good as it gets.'

The Bentley turned along the promenade. On the left, the Grand Hotel appeared. There was still light in the day, reflected on the sea, somehow complicit in this uneasy moment of peace.

Peter would wake up soon, yes, but who would he be this time?

A short time later, when I entered the dining room, Peter was struggling, or jostling, with an elegant though elderly lady.

'Let us have your table, madam. You have finished your pudding and we have not begun. What is wrong with you? Have you no Christmas spirit ? You can have coffee and liqueurs in the lounge, at my expense.'

'How dare you! Leave my chair alone, you uncouth lout,' the lady protested.

'I am not name-calling. Who is name-calling?' Sellers was talking in a slightly foreign accent.

'You want me to call you names? Very well. You are a rude - and greedy - woman.
'Do you mean to start again with the soup? Very well, no. Then you do not need this table. I will sit at it until you go away, Madam. Until you retire, because I am couth, not uncouth. Couth, do you hear?'

He sat at the table as the lady tried to push him away.

'Call yourself a Christian? What is this? Unhand me, madam.'

A gentleman appeared. 'What's going on?'

'Charles, this man is trying to take our table.'

'Because we are famished. How else will we have our Christmas lunch? She is finished. You are both finished.'

'You bounder,' said Charles. 'I am Major Farnsworth of the Fourth Hussars, and I object to your behaviour, sir.'

'And I am Major Bloodnok of the Fifth Knives and Forks,' giggled Peter. 'And I object to your red nose. It's a danger to shipping. I advise you to stay well inland.'

Major Farnsworth grabbed Peter, ready to haul him out of his chair. 'I'll teach you . . .'

'Oh come on, mate. Can't you take a joke?' Sellers turned on his Lavender Hill Mob cockney.

The Major stared at Peter. 'Don't I know you?

'God almighty, it's Peter Sellers, mother! He's having us on!' He let out an almighty guffaw.

'Do join us, old boy. With your friends, yes. Waiter!' he shouted. 'Bring more chairs.'

'He's a very naughty man,' said mother, not at all mollified.

'It's all the same with the film crowd, mother,' explained Charles, for everyone was soon on firstname terms.

By the time Lynne arrived in the dining room, having been powdering her nose, all was serene. She had no idea that the Maitre d' had been about to phone the police and have her deranged husband carted off to the nick, or straight to the local looney bin.

'How nice of these people to invite us to share their table, Peter. Are you sure you don't mind?'

Charles Farnsworth replied: 'Not at all, my dear. Great fun, a great adventure. Wait till I tell Larry how the fantastic Peter Sellers had us on. Ho, ho.'

'That would be Larry Olivier, wouldn't it?' said Peter, still East End-like. 'I could get him on the blower and ask him to drop by. Him and Joanny.'

'They're in the Bahamas, this Christmas. Great loss to Brighton,' said Charles, who seemed proud of knowing the town's most famous thespian.

'Well, we could charter a Boeing and all go over and...'

'No, Peter.' Lynne cut him off. 'What's that man doing over there, holding a cardboard box?' inquired Charles's mother.

'Oh, that's John Antrobus. He's a writer,' said Peter. 'In that box, displayed, is the Nativity scene, Baby Jesus in a manger, surrounded by his mother, lots of animals and hangers-on trying to get their names in the Bible.'

I pointed at the tiny figures and added: 'Including three wise men who followed a star to Bethlehem.'

'They followed a star to Brighton,' said Peter, beaming.

Later, after dinner, we all sang carols round the crib. The lights were lowered and candles produced to make a poignant scene of a Christmas Truce in the Great War of Peter Sellers's emotions.

All was mellow. All was love. 'The hopes and fears of all our years, Are met in Thee tonight.'

Those lines we sang sweetly from O Little Town Of Bethlehem summed up a feeling of Oneness that this odd assortment of people, gathered together around a cardboard crib, could not otherwise express.

'Excuse me,' said Peter. His eyes were glistening. Did I detect tears?

That was the last we saw of him. Peter, we discovered, had hired a taxi to take him back to London on his own. He'd had enough.

We drove back to London through the night, Lynne and myself. She was rather upset by Sellers's bizarre departure.

'It's happened before,' was all she said, tight-lipped. She dropped me off in Chelsea.

'Merry Christmas, John. What's left of it,' said Lynne, sadly.

That was all I saw of either of them for almost a year. I suppose it was the most remarkable Christmas I have ever experienced. And I still have the little figure of Baby Jesus in a crib to remind me of that day.

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