Peter Sellers he also said that in Sellers's previous films he had "been at his worst recently". In 1969 Sellers starred opposite Ringo Starr in the Joseph McGrath-directed film "The Magic Christian". Sellers portrayed Sir Guy Grand, an eccentric billionaire who plays elaborate practical jokes on people. The critic Irv Slifkin remarked that the film was a reflection of the cynicism of Peter Sellers, describing the film as a "proto-Pythonesque adaption of Terry Southern's semi-free-form short novel", and "one of the strangest films to be shown at a gala premiere for Britain's royal family". The film, a satire on human nature, was
Peter Sellers be known as 'alternative'"—including himself, while the media historian Graham McCann states "the anarchic spirit of the Goon Show ... would inspire, directly or indirectly and to varying extents, ... "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", "The Young Ones", "Vic Reeves Big Night Out", "The League of Gentlemen" [and] "Brass Eye"." The stage play "Being Sellers" premiered in Australia in 1998, three years after the release of the biography by Roger Lewis, "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers". In 2004, the book was turned into an HBO film with the same title, starring Geoffrey Rush. The play later transferred