The Curse of Steptoe
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| The Curse of Steptoe | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Television play |
| Running time | 60 min. |
| Written by | Brian Fillis |
| Starring | Jason Isaacs Phil Davis Roger Allam Burn Gorman Rory Kinnear Elspeth Rae |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original channel | BBC Four |
| Release date(s) | 19 March 2008 |
The Curse of Steptoe is a television play which was first broadcast on 19 March 2008 on BBC Four as part of a season of dramas about television personalities. It stars Jason Isaacs as Harry H. Corbett and Phil Davis as Wilfrid Brambell. The drama is based upon the actors' on- and off-screen relationship during the making of the BBC sitcom Steptoe and Son, and is based on interviews with colleagues, friends and family of the actors, and the Steptoe writers, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.[1]
The screenplay was written by Brian Fillis, also responsible for the similarly themed 2006 drama Fear of Fanny, which is about television personality Fanny Cradock off-screen. The 60-minute film is directed by Michael Samuels and produced by Ben Bickerton.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
The play covers the entire history of the televised series, skipping over the five-year break between 1965 and 1970 when no episodes were recorded. It starts with Corbett a then-rising Shakespearean actor, starring as Richard II at Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, looking beyond that to Henry V at the Old Vic, and tipped to eclipse Gielgud. Meanwhile, across town at the BBC Television Centre, writers Galton and Simpson have parted from their longtime star, Tony Hancock, and are given a free hand. They write a series of one-off plays starring actors, not comics who will expect every line to contain a laugh.
The Offer, in which they cast Corbett in his first television role, is wildly successful and evolves into an uneasy, decade-long comedy partnership between Corbett and the alcoholic, self-loathing homosexual Brambell. Corbett's stage career fades quickly from typecasting, and his first marriage to comic actress Sheila Steafel suffers from his womanizing, while Brambell's drinking and his relaxed approach to acting cause conflict between him and Corbett, a method actor once described as "the British Marlon Brando". Off-screen, Brambell is secretive and dislikes the trappings of fame, and his worst fears are realised when, entrapped by a policeman in a public toilet, he is prosecuted for gross indecency and the details of his failed marriage are published in the newspapers.
The show, and the actors' careers, are milked dry. Corbett is unable to obtain work that is not a variation on his cockney rag and bone man persona. At the start, Corbett as Richard II had spoken the words "I wasted time and now doth time waste me," and at the end he says them to himself as he awaits his cue in a live recording of Steptoe and Son. Finally Corbett is unable to find any work except pantomime or a stage version of Steptoe in Australia.
[edit] Reception
The 19 March 2008, broadcast of The Curse of Steptoe brought BBC Four its highest audience figures, estimated as 1.41 million viewers, a 7% share of multichannel audiences between 9pm and 10.05pm, based on overnight returns.[2] Reviews were good. The Guardian described the two stars as "striking, like Walter Matthau and George Burns (sic) in The Odd Couple",[3] and The Times praised "the tough, funny, sad script...and the subtly glorious performances". [4] The Independent's reviewer said "Anyone who remembers David Barrie's Channel 4 documentary When Steptoe Met Son, broadcast in 2002, won't have found all this particularly revelatory, but Isaacs and Davis played it so well that it had a fresh life." [5]
The family of Harry H. Corbett felt very differently, releasing a statement which claimed the drama was inaccurate and defamatory.[6]
[edit] Cast
| Actor | Character |
|---|---|
| Jason Isaacs | Harry H. Corbett |
| Phil Davis | Wilfrid Brambell |
| Burn Gorman | Ray Galton |
| Rory Kinnear | Alan Simpson |
| Roger Allam | Tom Sloane |
| Zoe Tapper | Sheila Steafel (Corbett's first wife) |
| Sophie Hunter | Maureen Corbett (Corbett's second wife) |
| Clare Higgins | Joan Littlewood |
| Elspeth Rae | Young Actress |
- Rory Kinnear, who played the scriptwriter Alan Simpson, is the son of the great comic actor Roy Kinnear, who like Corbett was an alumnus of Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, and worked in radio, television and film.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ BBC press release (11/11/07)
- ^ BBC4 breaks ratings record, March 19, 2008, The Guardian
- ^ Last night's TV, Nancy Banks-Smith in The Guardian, March 20, 2008
- ^ The Curse of Steptoe, March 20, 2008, The Times
- ^ Last Night's TV: The Curse of Steptoe, BBC4, Countdown to War, BBC2, The Independent, March 20, 2008
- ^ steptoe-and-son.com: An important message from the Corbett family
[edit] External links
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