Heavens Above!
The quiet town of Orbiston Parva, ancestral home to the Despard family whose fortune is now built on the locally-manufactured miracle drug Tranquilax, sedative, stimulant and laxative all in one, it is an imperfect but nonetheless happy place soon to be shaken up by the appointment of a new vicar to the parish, the Reverend John Edward Smallwood, a clerical error having placed him in the position rather than his more suitably conservative namesake.
A devout and humble man who takes his position and obligations seriously, the Reverend Smallwood believes charity begins at home, offering to house the family of travellers who have recently been evicted from the grounds of the Tranquilax factory, shocking his parishioners by appointing a black man, Matthew Robinson, as his warden and encouraging Lady Lucy Despard to redirect her energy to charitable work, creating a food distribution point in the town.
Directed by the Boulting Brothers, twins John and Roy, from a script by Frank Harvey from an idea by the polymath Malcolm Muggeridge, Heavens Above! was originally released in the summer of 1963, a satire on the church and English attitudes and politics with an ensemble led by Peter Sellers as the idealistic but naïve Reverend Smallwood and including Isabel Jeans as Lady Despard and Deep Space Nine’s Brock Peters as Matthew.
A surprisingly progressive film for the era, embracing the idea that the church should be active in the community, Smallwood’s determination to embrace the unfortunate and provide for them bordering on socialism, the resistance is led by William Hartnell’s councillor Major Fowler, one of his last roles before he began journeying through time and space, and Sir Geoffrey Despard, Mark Eden’s now-lost Marco Polo being a historical figure the Doctor encountered on those travels, and Joan Hickson, future Miss Jane Marple, also shows up as a snooty housewife.
A community of twitching curtains and un-Christian judgement, Smallwood makes it clear that all are welcome at his table, his Good Neighbour Fellowship boldly proclaimed as non-denominational, but while he is aware that there are some who will take advantage although he is not a fool it is his underestimation of the greed of those who have no genuine need which is his downfall, Sellers giving a performance of precise movement and delivery in which it is clear he is not a fool even though some take him as one, his simple gifts taken in bad faith.
Joining StudioCanal’s Vintage Classics collection on Blu-ray, the new edition of Heavens Above! is supported by a commentary by comedy historians Gemma and Robert Ross, a look at the production of the film from Peter Lydon and Vic Pratt, archive interviews with many who knew and worked with Sellers originally shot for the 1992 Channel Four documentary Seller’s Best and a discussion of the film from the 2025 LOCO London Comedy Film Festival.
Heavens Above! will be available on Blu-ray from StudioCanal from Monday 4th August
Both Two-Way Stretch and Heavens Above! are screening as part of the BFI season In Character: The Films of Peter Sellers at the BFI Southbank from Saturday 2nd to Saturday 30th August
