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Start giftingSteptoe & Son: The BBC Radio Collection: Series 1 & 2
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Learn moreSeries 1 and 2 of the classic radio sitcom starring Harry H. Corbett and Wilfred Brambell, adapted from the much-loved TV series.
Steptoe and Son ran for eight series on BBC TV and even spawned two feature films. Such was the series' popularity in the mid-1960s that the cast specially recorded several episodes for BBC radio.
Here, collected together for the first time, are all 21 episodes from the first and second radio series, scripted by Hancock's Half Hour creators Ray Galton and Alan Simpson and adapted by Gale Pedrick. Among the classic comic incidents in these timeless episodes, Albert's 65th birthday turns into a disaster; Harold finds love with a French girl; Albert is upset by Harold's plans for a proper bathroom; and the duo get an irresistible offer. Plus, Albert and Harold's creditors arrive seeking payment; two coffins lead to a burst of superstition; Harold regrets taking Albert to the cinema; and Albert disrupts Harold's Labour Party meeting.
The episodes included are The Offer; The Bird; Sixty-Five Today; The Stepmother; The Economist; Wallah-Wallah Catsmeat; The Diploma; Steptoe à la Cart; The Holiday; The Bath; The Lead Man Cometh; A Musical Evening; The Bonds That Bind Us; The Siege of Steptoe Street; Pilgrim's Progress; The Wooden Overcoats; Sunday for Seven Days; The Piano; My Old Man's a Tory; Homes Fit for Heroes; Crossed Swords. Also included are two bonus features: a short 1966 Steptoe & Son sketch from The Ken Dodd Show and a selection of trailers prepared for overseas broadcast.
Ray Galton and Alan Simpson met in a sanatorium in Surrey, where they were both being treated for TB. Ray Galton remembers noticing the six-foot-four Simpson and thinking he looked surprisingly large - ‘you expect everyone in a sanatorium to be thin and weedy, and he was the biggest guy I’d ever seen’. During two years in the same ward, they listened to comedy shows together and also wrote a series of their own, creating a radio room in a linen cupboard.
Having left the sanatorium within a few months of each other, they decided to get a professional opinion of their work and sent a sketch they had written called The Pirate Sketch to the BBC. They were asked to go in for an interview, and soon found themselves writing for the sketch show Happy Go Lucky. Over the next two years they continued to write sketches for a number of big names, before coming up with the idea for Hancock’s Half Hour. Although the BBC took some persuading, eventually the show was scheduled, initially for radio but later as a television series. A phenomenally successful ten years later, Galton and Simpson were themselves very well known names.
After Hancock’s Half Hour they wrote Comedy Playhouse for the BBC, out of which came their second huge television and radio hit, Steptoe & Son. In 1977 they wrote The Galton & Simpson Playhouse, produced by Yorkshire Television for ITV.
Ray Galton and Alan Simpson met in a sanatorium in Surrey, where they were both being treated for TB. Ray Galton remembers noticing the six-foot-four Simpson and thinking he looked surprisingly large - ‘you expect everyone in a sanatorium to be thin and weedy, and he was the biggest guy I’d ever seen’. During two years in the same ward, they listened to comedy shows together and also wrote a series of their own, creating a radio room in a linen cupboard.
Having left the sanatorium within a few months of each other, they decided to get a professional opinion of their work and sent a sketch they had written called The Pirate Sketch to the BBC. They were asked to go in for an interview, and soon found themselves writing for the sketch show Happy Go Lucky. Over the next two years they continued to write sketches for a number of big names, before coming up with the idea for Hancock’s Half Hour. Although the BBC took some persuading, eventually the show was scheduled, initially for radio but later as a television series. A phenomenally successful ten years later, Galton and Simpson were themselves very well known names.
After Hancock’s Half Hour they wrote Comedy Playhouse for the BBC, out of which came their second huge television and radio hit, Steptoe & Son. In 1977 they wrote The Galton & Simpson Playhouse, produced by Yorkshire Television for ITV.