LONG lost comedy classics are being screened at the Southend Film Festival this evening.

It was once thought that two of legendary performer Peter Sellers’ earliest films were lost for good, but 60 years after they were first made, Dearth of a Salesman and Insomnia is Good For You, are being screened at the Odeon in Southend town centre.

The films were found in a skip in London when the defunct Park Lane Films’ former office building was being cleared out.

Star of The Office Mackenzie Crook, who lives in a house in north London previously owned by Sellers, hosted the gala screening.

He said: "Possibly Peter Sellers might have cringed at the idea that these films would be screened at a lavish film festival but the fact is that the passage of time has turned them into treasures.

"If character actors have a god it has to be Peter Sellers, who developed the skill of being a character actor into so much more."

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