The Peter Sellers Story: As He Filmed It (BBC2); Bedtime (BBC1)

LIKE having to sit and look at other people's snaps, watching their holiday films can become tedious. It helps, as in this case, if you are famous and those caught on camera include Princess Margaret, Britt Ekland, Stanley Kubrick and Spike Milligan as well as lesser-known members of your family.

It's also an advantage if the man handling the camera obsessively filmed himself, family and friends all his life, as Peter Sellers did.

Arena's TV biography of the comic actor, who died in 1980, was a re-edited version of a 1995 trilogy that used his large collection of home movies. The home movies flickered on screen, while people who knew Sellers talked about him on the soundtrack.

An intriguing and original way of telling someone's story, although there were times you longed to see what speakers you didn't know looked like.

Sellers himself claimed to have no identity outside his roles. His home movies extended his acting life into his personal life. Sometimes he left the film uncut, sometimes he polished it into little stories.

The footage produced a unique kind of self portrait, with the BBC adding some honest input from friends and family.

His Goon Show colleague Spike Milligan thought Sellers was "doomed to a heart attack through sheer lack of activity". He was a man who bought shoes with elastic sides so he wouldn't have to bend down to tie the laces. First wife Anne said he brought home every character he played, making their home life like living on the edge of a precipice. "You weren't sure whether he'd be wonderful or ghastly when he came home," she said.

This view was reinforced by Bert Mortimer, his chauffeur for 16 years. "He'd have a great time and then go into a depression," he said.

For Anne, the bad times began when the couple moved into the Manor House at Chipperfield, in Hertfordshire. Shortly afterwards, Sellers became besotted by Sophia Loren, his co-star in the film The Millionairess.

His relationship with his mother Peg was a big influence on his behaviour. He was an only child, a spoilt one to whom no one ever said "no".

Sellers' attitude seemed to be that if you were a genius - and many would consider him eligible for that label - it was a licence to behave badly.

The rest of this space was reserved to tell you how good Messiah 2 (BBC1) was - until the murder thriller was pulled from the schedules in the wake of the Soham deaths. Those wanting to see Alun Armstrong, who plays a detective in Messiah 2, in something else can catch him in Bedtime (BBC1, today, tomorrow and Wednesday, 10.30pm) as a father coping with a computer-obsessed teenage son.

This sequel to writer-director Andy Hamilton's previous series follows three couples in bedrooms in adjoining houses. By far the funniest are old timers Alice and Andrew, marvellously played by Sheila Hancock and Timothy West.

West's Andrew is one of those worried old folk who rails against toilets that won't flush and his computer's accusation that he's just performed an illegal operation. "It's just a computer, not bloody Darth Vader," snaps Alice.

Best of all was Alice forgetting a conversation they had about how bad their memories were getting.