The Curse of Steptoe

[batman]

I thought this programme was excellent. Jason Isaacs and Phil Davis were very good as Corbett and Bramble and I felt it captured superbly the frustration of their private lives. It also successfully touched on the snobbery that existed in British theatre at that time. Top marks to all concerned from The Bat.

[Harleybloke]

Quite agree Bats, I thought the make up as the 'later' Harry H. was superb!

It could have been him! What it did make me think though, was did we appreciate what a Gem we had in Harry H. while he was alive?

To quote Joni Mitchell, 'You don't know what you got till it's gone.......'

Harry H., Jimmy Beck, Richard Beckinsale such sad losses. Whatever they are in, whenever I watch them they make me smile...........

[Windthrop]

I liked it - well produced, written and acted and concise. Everything counted for something and there was no padding. The parallels between the characters and the actors frustrations was subtley pointed up.

[julian_craster]

Did Head of Light Entertainment Tom Sloan really sit in on every rehearsal/episode of Steptoe and Son......?

This seems unlikely . Where was the director of the programme, and why was he written out of the script ?

I felt the script was a bit of a 'cut and paste ' job....but the actors who played Galton and Simpson were brilliant !

[HIPPIEDAVE]

Phil Davis is very underrated, he was brilliant in Robin of Sherwood as King John

[scholes]

An eminently watchable hour of viewing. I couldn't help but draw parallels with the frustrations of both Corbett himself and the character Harold Steptoe.
Both couldn't shake off the stigma of their respective situations- a talented actor that eventually became pigeon holed and a man that simply couldn't or wouldn't make the break from his Father.
Great performances from all the protagonists.
If Ken Stott's performance as Hancock is as powerful then it will bode well for the rest of this season of plays.
I agree that Phil Davies is talented, but he always seems to exude a menacing presence.

[Windthrop]

Originally Posted by julian_craster Did Head of Light Entertainment Tom Sloan really sit in on every rehearsal/episode of Steptoe and Son......? This seems unlikely . Where was the director of the programme, and why was he written out of the script ? I felt the script was a bit of a 'cut and paste ' job....but the actors who played Galton and Simpson were brilliant !

TS was well known as a paternalistic HOD so I have read.

I think in the case of the director not being shown it was a matter of time and you can only get a certain number of characters in 60 mins and compromises happen. All the significant characters were there.

I used to think intelligent one-off TV dramas were dead. I was wrong they are alive and well and living on BBC4.

[orpheum]

Whilst i agree there were a couple of quibbles .Firstly when he is filming "Ladies Who Do" it is made to seem as if this was well after the initial success of Steptoe whereas it was made shortly after.Would nt have thought at that time that he would have been irritated at having to use the Harold voice.At the end on the phone the agent said that there was a Carry On.Surely that was screaming which again was around 1964 when Carry On was at its height,so not really a comedown particularly considering the cast of thjat film.Otherwise very good ,particularly as we all know what happened in Australia.

[faginsgirl]

Originally Posted by julian_craster Did Head of Light Entertainment Tom Sloan really sit in on every rehearsal/episode of Steptoe and Son......? This seems unlikely . Where was the director of the programme, and why was he written out of the script ? I felt the script was a bit of a 'cut and paste ' job....but the actors who played Galton and Simpson were brilliant !

I agree, it was a bit cut and paste.

I dont know what I thought of the programme really, there are just things that couldnt put my finger on about it. Thats not saying that the actors didnt do a good job in their portrayals though.

BUT I did think Burn Gorman looked silly in a beard

Fagins girl xx

[Windthrop]

Originally Posted by orpheum Whilst i agree there were a couple of quibbles .Firstly when he is filming "Ladies Who Do" it is made to seem as if this was well after the initial success of Steptoe whereas it was made shortly after.Would nt have thought at that time that he would have been irritated at having to use the Harold voice.At the end on the phone the agent said that there was a Carry On.Surely that was screaming which again was around 1964 when Carry On was at its height,so not really a comedown particularly considering the cast of thjat film.Otherwise very good ,particularly as we all know what happened in Australia.

He was in line for a part in a 70s Carry On I have read. By the mid-70s the series was deteriorating and the films were no longer up the the standard of Screaming IMHO and the films increasingly relied on Jack Douglas shouting "Phwwaay, get off !!!!" to get laughs.

I think the point about LWD (a film I find quite entertaining) was that Corbett saw the film in terms of playing a character a step up socially from Harold and in a film and was disgruntled when he was merely hired as a comic 'personality'.

It is easy to quibble at certain things when 15 years is telescoped into an hour - Corbett did do some serious acting at arts theatres in the early 70s (I have seen the theatre programme) and he didn't just go from several years of panto into the tour down under because he did the radio version of Steptoe for a couple of years after the TV series. Indeed in the early 80s did a coffee commercial with Bramble as the characters. I felt the drama used well selected incidents to create a dramatic truth and on that level it worked well.

[CaptainWaggett]

Originally Posted by julian_craster Did Head of Light Entertainment Tom Sloan really sit in on every rehearsal/episode of Steptoe and Son......? This seems unlikely . Where was the director of the programme, and why was he written out of the script ?

But it was Roger Allam! How could anyone object to him getting extra screentime?

[samkydd]

Originally Posted by batman I thought this programme was excellent. Jason Isaacs and Phil Davis were very good as Corbett and Bramble and I felt it captured superbly the frustration of their private lives. It also successfully touched on the snobbery that existed in British theatre at that time. Top marks to all concerned from The Bat.

It was a great piece of drama and Philp Davis was perfect. Some people I work with seem to think that actors in comedy series are comedians, and life is one big party full of laughter when in reality they're the same as everyone else; hang-ups insecurity, disappointment and frustration. The irony of Harry H was that he was just as trapped in the Steptoe role as Harold Steptoe was in the scrapyard in Oil Drum Lane.

There's no doubt that Steptoe and Son had a big influence on me growing up, and although selfishly we like to see this type of very good comedy series go on and on, the writers could have called it a day much earlier. Fair enough Wilfrid and Harry H could have called it a day much earlier as well, but as demonstrated in the drama last night, once you've been associated with a certain character you're stuffed when it comes to finding new acting roles! Harry H had some pretty duff ones during and post Steptoe!

The success of the series naturally drove the BBC to make more and more episodes, and regular decent money is hard to turn down for actors and writers.

I watched the Comedy Playhouse pilot afterwards and just had the thought that had it been a Play For Today (obviously it would have been longer than half an hour) it would proobably have gone down in TV drama history as one of the best TV plays of all time, along the lines of Edna the Inebriate Woman or Kathy Come Home.

One other thing that came across was what a pretentious and pompous git Harry H was portrayed as being.

[sippog]

I thought the version of Corbett was slightly skewed in the sense that it portrayed him as a classical actor who took a "wrong turn" into populist culture and blamed that mainly on STEPTOE. Films like THE BARGEE and RATTLE OF A SIMPLE MAN both featured him in working class character roles; so STEPTOE can hardly have been the only "wrong" choice he made.

[samkydd]

Originally Posted by batman I thought this programme was excellent. Jason Isaacs and Phil Davis were very good as Corbett and Bramble and I felt it captured superbly the frustration of their private lives. It also successfully touched on the snobbery that existed in British theatre at that time. Top marks to all concerned from The Bat.

It was a great piece of drama and Philp Davis was perfect. Some people I work with seem to think that actors in comedy series are comedians, and life is one big party full of laughter when in reality they're the same as everyone else; hang-ups insecurity, disappointment and frustration. The irony of Harry H was that he was just as trapped in the Steptoe role as Harold Steptoe was in the scrapyard in Oil Drum Lane.

There's no doubt that Steptoe and Son had a big influence on me growing up, and although selfishly we like to see this type of very good comedy series go on and on, the writers could have called it a day much earlier. Fair enough Wilfrid and Harry H could have called it a day much earlier as well, but as demonstrated in the drama last night, once you've been associated with a certain character you're stuffed when it comes to finding new acting roles! Harry H had some pretty duff ones during and post Steptoe!

The success of the series naturally drove the BBC to make more and more episodes, and regular decent money is hard to turn down for both actors and writers.

I watched the Comedy Playhouse pilot afterwards and just had the thought that had it been a one-off Play For Today (obviously it would have been longer than half an hour) it would probably have gone down in TV drama history as one of the best TV plays of all time!

[batman]

When I re-watched the early Steptoe episodes a while ago I was struck by the thought that I wasn't watching 'comedy', I felt I was watching a tragedy that it was OK to laugh at. Again this raises the point of the snobbery that existed, and still exists today to some extent, in theatre at that time. Corbett was perceived as having 'sold out' by Joan Littlewood et al and this was nicely touched upon by the scene in the pub and by the references to 'Finney's Hamlet'. Corbett was portrayed as being pretentious and in interviews that is how he came across. I think his life story would make a cracking full length drama in it's own right, especially after watching the Peter Sellers film the other night. Corbett's life for me has much more drama to offer.