Steptoe and Son

Steptoe and Son: Albert Steptoe and his son Harold run a "rag and bone" business. Harold wants to move up in the world and leave home, but his plans constantly thwarted by his cunning old and cantnkerous father.

Steptoe and Son was a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were aired on the BBC from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974. Its theme tune, "Old Ned", was composed by Ron Grainer. In a 2004, BBC, poll to find "Britain's Best Sitcom", Steptoe and Son was voted 15th best British sitcom of all time.

The show had its roots in a 1962 episode of Galton & Simpson's Comedy Playhouse entitled "The Offer". Galton & Simpson had split from Tony Hancock, for whom they had written Hancock's Half Hour, and had agreed to write a series of six comedy shows for the BBC. The fifth in the series, "The Offer", was born partly out of writer's block, and partly from budgetary contraints. Earlier shows in the series had cost more than expected, and so Galton & Simpson decided to write a two-hander set in one room.

Although Galton & Simpson had initially expected a different pilot from the series to have been commissioned ("Clicquot Et Fils" starring Eric Sykes as a French undertaker), they were reportedly overwhelmed by the reaction to "The Offer", and later that year, the first of eight series was commissioned, the first four of which were made in black and white. Each series comprised five to eight half-hour episodes, and the last was transmitted in 1974. At the peak of the series' popularity, it commanded viewing figures of some 28 million per episode. In addition, the early 1970s saw two feature films, two 45-minute Christmas specials and a number of radio shows based on the TV scripts. In 2005, the play Steptoe and Son in Murder at Oil Drum Lane, written by Ray Galton and John Antrobus, brought the storyline to a close.

The series was one of the first UK situation comedy programmes to employ actors rather than comedians in the principal roles. Galton and Simpson had decided themselves that they wanted to try to write for performers who "didn't count their laughs".

Links

Review

http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/tv/100/articles/comedy.html

Summary and info on cast list ect.

http://www.phill.co.uk/comedy/steptoe/index.html

Episode List

http://www.phill.co.uk/comedy/steptoe/list.html

Steptoe and Son Appreciation Website

http://www.steptoe-and-son.com/indexmain.html

Mini Clips

http://www.steptoe-and-son.com/episodes/vctheoffer.html

http://www.steptoe-and-son.com/episodes/vcthebird.html

http://www.steptoe-and-son.com/episodes/vcthepiano.html

http://www.steptoe-and-son.com/episodes/vctheeconomist.html

http://www.steptoe-and-son.com/episodes/vcthediploma.html

http://www.steptoe-and-son.com/episodes/vctheholiday.html

Steptoe and Son Gallery

http://www.steptoe-and-son.com/stills/stillsgal01.html

More information

"Steptoe and Son" is about the love-hate relationship between Albert Steptoe (Wilfrid Brambell) and is son Harold (Harry H Corbett). Together they run a 'rag-and-bone' business although Harold wishes he could leave. "Steptoe and Son" is a landmark in British sitcom history as it set the standard against which all sitcoms were judged.

"Steptoe and Son" was never meant to be a sitcom. It all started when Tony Hancock dispensed with the services of the top comedy writers in Britain at the time, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. On leaving "Hancock" they were invited to script 10 short comedy plays for the BBC. Thus began ‘Comedy Playhouse’, which would run from 1961 to 1974 and whose pilots would spawn series such as "Till Death Us Do Part", "Meet The Wife", "Are You Being Served?" and "Last of the Summer Wine". Of Galton and Simpson’s 10 originals, it was the fifth, "The Offer", broadcast on the 5th of January 1962, about a father-and-son, rag-and-bone business, which was deemed most worthy of a series.

Its creation had been hurried and haphazard. Under sudden pressure to produce 10 new scripts in a short space of time, Galton and Simpson simply decided to start writing two male characters and worry about the rest later. Soon they became rag-and-bone men, and after a while they realised that one partner was older than the other, so made them father and son. A truly classic television show was thus born. "The Offer" was an instant success, and the writers and actors were invited to create a series, which (eventually), they agreed to. "Steptoe and Son", as it was now titled, aired in June of 1962 and was an instant success.

It was an absolute landmark, the first ‘proper’ sitcom in the sense that it featured actors playing actual characters as opposed to comedians playing extensions of themselves. Landmark too, was the exploration of the misery, poverty and hopelessness of working class, even underclass, life on British television. Extraordinary also was the portrayal of a father and son who truly loathed and despised each other. And to find comedy in this situation? Apparently effortless for Galton and Simpson, who blended farce with tragedy, hilarity with cruelty, and created what remains, if not the funniest, certainly the most important situation comedy of all time. Harold’s plight was heartbreaking, his desire for love, success, money and dignity constantly thwarted by his controlling, sadistic and manipulative father.

The series ended in 1965, only to return (in colour) for 4 more series from 1970 to 1974, which again featured glorious scripts and outstanding performances from Harry H Corbett and Wilfred Brambell. The show never lost its capacity to move and shock audiences as well as make them laugh. This is evident in one of the later episodes, ‘Divided We Stand’, in which the farcical and hilarious concept of Harold splitting the house in two (including the TV) is used to explore the extent of Harold’s desperation and Albert’s cruelty. This episode is justly famous and remains the ultimate highlight in a show packed full of memorable moments. The series came to a final end in 1974. Having come tantalisingly close so many times, Harold remained in Oil Drum Lane with his father, the horse Hercules, and a life of wasted opportunity, at all times thwarted by the twisted old man he lived with. In "Steptoe and Son", there were no happy endings.

To this day, "Steptoe" remains a funny, fresh and intensely moving piece of character comedy. The recent revelation that Corbett and Brambell actually despised each other in real life as well as on-screen adds yet another depth. Following the old maxim that conflict, hatred and despair reap comic rewards, "Steptoe and Son"’s influence on situation comedy and television generally cannot be overestimated. It is, quite simply, one of the most important television programmes ever produced.

Loglines

Finally, the logline as the shortest, most concise summary of, may prove the most difficult to realize to your satisfaction. A logline is soley for "selling" purposes: a couple of well-chosen lines used to "pitch" your script to prospective buyers. Think about what inspired you to write your script, what you most like about it,a and what makes it stand out from other sitcoms.

With all of these forms - treatment, synopsis and logline- you ill want to focus on those elements that are most exciting, challenging, intiguing and original in your script, taking care to place them in a context (that a genre, for example) that is both famililiar and accessible to the reader, so reassuring them that your script is "marketable".

Synopsis

A synopsis generally implies something much shorter than average treatment, probably a page at the most. Unless you have written an extremely basic script, a synopsis will have to omit most of the action and focus on the main points. For this reason, some screenwriteers find composing a synopsis more taxing than writing the original script. Imagine trying to sum up the plot of the Godfather or The Matrix in a couple paragraphs!

The Treatment

A treatment is generally more inclusive than a synopsis (which condeses the story into a few paragraphs), and also more dramatic. Its purpose is to create curiosity and enthusiasum for your script while describing the basic elements: leading characters, key scenes, overall storyline, mood, tone and/or genre of the piece , and any themes to be developed or explored.

British Sitcom

What is a sitcom?
“A humorous radio or television series featuring the reactions of a regular cast of characters to unusual situations, such as misunderstandings or embarrassing coincidences; a sitcom.”
A sitcom ("sit-com", "sit com") or, to give it it's full name, situation comedy is a genre of comedy performance in which recurring characters take part in humorous story lines centred on a common environment, such as a family home or workplace. Sitcoms were originally devised for the radio but today are typically found on television.
"Situation Comedy" entry on Wikipedia
A British sitcom is a situation comedy which is produced in or set in the United Kingdom. Our list of British sitcoms contains almost every British sitcom ever broadcast on television in the UK. At the moment the BSG doesn't cover one-off single episode sitcoms (such as those which were broadcast in the BBC Comedy Playhouse strand) or radio only sitcoms, however we will be including these in our list in late 2006.
The definition of a sitcom leaves quite a lot to open to individual interpretation - it is therefore very hard to classify exactly which comedy programmes are sitcoms and which aren't. We've had to use our own judgement in some cases to decide whether a programme which displays only some of the attributes of a sitcom should appear on this website or not. In most cases we've given the programme the benefit of the doubt. More on this topic
British sitcoms are normally arranged into six episode series - with one half-hour episode being broadcast each week. The reason each season is typically only six episodes long per season is that, unlike in America, sitcoms in the UK are normally written by just one or two people instead of by a team of writers. Also British TV stations prefer just six episodes per series as it means they can change their schedules more frequently and it is not such a risk investing in a new programme.
British sitcoms are normally first broadcast on one of seven TV channels - they're either shown on one of four BBC channels, ITV1, Channel 4 or Five. BBC1 shows mainstream sitcoms, BBC2 shows more cult sitcoms (such as "The Office") and the BBC currently use their third channel as more of a testing ground for new comedy they're not sure about yet. BBC4 shows high-brow intelligent sitcoms such as "The Thick of It".
The History of British Sitcom on Television
Below we run through the key developments from each decade...
1950s
The fifties was when the British sitcom first appeared on television. Hancock's Half Hour is considered by many to be one of the first big British sitcoms, it ran simultaneously on BBC Radio and television throughout the 1950s and was seen and heard by the majority of the population. Early 1950s 'sitcoms' were very different from what we now recognise as a sitcom in that they were focused around comedians playing extensions of themselves rather than playing totally fictional characters.
The Army Game was another programme which was very popular with audiences in this decade.
1960s
Steptoe and Son, created by Hancock writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, burst on to the BBC in 1962 and made an instant impression with audiences.
Later in the decade Johnny Speight's Till Death Us Do Part brought some interesting political issues to the screen whilst Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais created their first of many sitcom hits - The Likely Lads. Also Jimmy Perry and David Croft's Dad's Army started in this decade and little did they realise at the time it would go on throughout the 1970s and in the process become one of Britain's top rated sitcoms.
1970s
The 1970s is where things really started to hot up. This decade is now looked upon as 'The Golden Age' of British sitcom because, looking back, more funny sitcoms were produced in these ten years than at any other time - a large number of the sitcoms made in the 70s are still regularly repeated all over the globe!
The new series during this decade included the massive smash hits Fawlty Towers, The Good Life, Are You Being Served?, Last of the Summer Wine (still going strong today!), Rising Damp, George and Mildred, Porridge, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, Open All Hours and To The Manor Born (which smashed all ratings records and is still the second most watched British sitcom of all time).
The seventies was a particularly successful era for commercial station ITV. The majority of the sitcoms produced in this decade were broadcast on ITV making the channel very popular. ITV have had very few successes since and is now in a bit of a comedy crisis.
This was also a decade in which a number of sitcoms which would now be considered politically incorrect were broadcast - Mind Your Language and Love Thy Neighbour being the two most well known examples. They've been criticised for being racist and xenophobic.
1980s
The political and social revolutions of 1980s Tory Britain caused the typical sitcom to change somewhat. More anarchic and less-traditional comedies like The Young Ones and Red Dwarf popped up and pushed the 'old fashioned' sitcoms off the screen. It was also the era of more sophisticated and intelligent sitcoms like the brilliant Blackadder and ever so clever Yes, Minister.
It was also during the eighties that John Sullivan first started writing Only Fools and Horses - a programme which by the 90s would become the countries top rated sitcom and has since been voted Britain's Best Sitcom.
1990s
The new sitcoms created in the 1990s continued the trend set in the 80s - Men Behaving Badly, Drop the Dead Donkey, The Vicar of Dibley, Ab Fab, Father Ted, The Royle Family, Alan Partridge and One Foot in the Grave all broke new ground and, in the process, changed what audiences expected of a 'typical' sitcom.
2000s
By the start of the millennium the popular, traditional mainstream mass-watched sitcom was all but dead. Instead cult sitcoms took to the airwaves - Spaced, Phoenix Nights, Black Books, Coupling and Early Doors have all appeared since. Whilst these series have been praised for being funny and original, at present there is still no sign of the popular mainstream sitcom making a comeback - only the BBC1 sitcom My Family has consistently managed to attract large viewing figures.
In 2002 Ricky Gervais' ground-breaking second series of The Office broadcast to great critical acclaim and hype. Whilst it has been hailed as the biggest sitcom success story of this decade it should be pointed out that it is still didn't manage to achieve the audience figures seen of the "golden seventies".
In the mid-naughties, following a number of terrible sitcoms like Doctors and Nurses, According to Bex and Mad About Alice, the comedy industry began to publicly mutter about "the death of the British sitcom". To counter this, and in an attempt to boost ratings, in 2006 both the BBC and Channel 4 announced boosts to their comedy budgets and a general increased focus upon their comedy output. Channel Five, not wishing to be left out, began producing their first British sitcoms (Suburban Shootout and Respectable being the first two to broadcast) and maybe more significantly, after such a long period focusing on dramas, ITV announced they would be putting considerable investment into new sitcom productions in an attempt to put a hit comedy back on their network. All this investment by the channels will soon be arriving on our screens; to find out what's coming see our sitcoms in production list