History Series / SteptoeAndSon

A classic BritCom of the 1960s and '70s, written by famed British comedy writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson and centered around the perennial conflicts between a pair of Shepherd's Bush rag-and-bone men, Harold Steptoe (Creator/HarryHCorbett) and his elderly father Albert (Creator/WilfridBrambell). Airy, pretentious snob Harold has finer aspirations than riding a horse-and-cart for the rest of his life and is determined to improve himself, whilst wily, sneaky Albert is equally determined to sabotage his every effort and keep him in the family home for a good while yet.

!!Provides examples of:

* NewscasterCameo: "The Desperate Hours" features a newscast delivered by (then retired) BBC newsreader Corbett Woodall.[[note]] Woodall was something of a go-to newsreader for 1970s British comedy; he also made cameo appearances on ''Series/TheGoodies'', ''Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?'' and Creator/SpikeMilligan's ''[=Q9=]''.[[/note]]

* HollywoodDateless: Despite his weird mannerisms and his social persona making very little sense, Harold doesn't seem to have much difficulty ''finding'' dates, and some of these relationships get fairly serious. Of course they all fall apart somehow or other once the woman in question meets Albert, but still.

[[quoteright:336:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/steptoe_and_son.jpeg]]

A classic BritCom of the 1960s and '70s, written by famed British comedy writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson and centered around the perennial conflicts between a pair of Shepherd's Bush rag-and-bone men, Harold Steptoe (Creator/HarryHCorbett) and his elderly father Albert (Creator/WilfridBrambell). Airy, pretentious snob Harold has finer aspirations than riding the horse-and-cart for the rest of his life and is determined to improve himself, whilst wily, sneaky Albert is equally determined to sabotage his every effort and keep him in the family home for a good while yet.

[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/c4398b28cb624bb7d37b53a31894498f.jpg]]

A classic BritCom of the 1960s and '70s, written by famed British comedy writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, focusing on the perennial conflicts between a pair of rag-and-bone men, Harold Steptoe (Creator/HarryHCorbett) and his elderly father Albert (Creator/WilfridBrambell). Airy, pretentious snob Harold has finer aspirations than riding the horse-and-cart for the rest of his life and is determined to improve himself, whilst wily, sneaky Albert is equally determined to sabotage his every effort and keep him in the family home for a good while yet.

The show was noted for being a lot more gritty and down-to-earth than most other sitcoms of the age, focusing on two obviously poor, working class and downtrodden men, with most of the humour coming from the interactions between the characters rather than farce and slapstick, and their situation providing a great deal of pathos for the two characters. Picked up from a pilot episode in the [[GenreAnthology Anthology Series]] ''Comedy Playhouse'', it had two runs on Creator/TheBBC (1962–65 and 1970–74[[note]] The later run was made in colour, but many episodes from 1970–72 only survive in black and white copies[[/note]]), and was adapted to radio as well as two feature films. More recently, there was a stage play called ''Steptoe and Son in Murder at Oil Drum Lane'', in which Harold returns to the junkyard in 2005, and is confronted by the ghost of Albert.

A classic BritCom of the 1960s and '70s, written by famed British comedy writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, focusing on the perennial conflicts between a pair of rag-and-bone men, Harold Steptoe (Harry H. Corbett) and his elderly father Albert (Creator/WilfridBrambell). Airy, pretentious snob Harold has finer aspirations than riding the horse-and-cart for the rest of his life and is determined to improve himself, whilst wily, sneaky Albert is equally determined to sabotage his every effort and keep him in the family home for a good while yet.

** The father/son equivalent; for all the bitterness and bickering, it was sometimes hinted that Harold and Albert really did care about each other. It's worth noting that Corbett and Brambell did not get along at all in real life, particularly later in their lives; much like their characters, the actors found themselves stuck with each other and having to make the best of things.[[note]] Just how much they disliked each other depends on who is telling the story. The 2002 documentary ''When Steptoe Met Son'' and the 2008 docu-drama ''The Curse of Steptoe'' between them implied that Corbett and Brambell absolutely loathed each other and the series. However, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson (who claimed their interviews for the documentary were {{Quote Mine}}d) denied this, and Corbett's daughter Susannah published a biography of her father at least partly to counter the notion that he hated Brambell and/or ''Steptoe and Son''. Brambell said after Corbett's death that while they were never close friends as they led very different lives, they generally liked each other enough to work together, and while Corbett admitted that he regretted being typecast as a comic actor later in his career, he claimed not to resent ''Steptoe and Son'' for this.[[/note]]

* ClassicallyTrainedExtra: Or in this case leading characters. The loss of Corbett (referred to as "the English Creator/MarlonBrando" at the time he was cast as Harold) to this typecasting has been described as one of the greatest losses to British theatre. The episode in which Harold tries his hand at stage acting (unsuccessfully, of course) could be seen as lampshading this.

* DiagonalBilling: When Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett argued over which of them should receive top billing ahead of the first series, the BBC compromised by alternating which of them was billed first every episode. Furthermore, whichever was billed second in the opening credits of an episode would be billed first in the closing credits.

* TragicDream: Harold's repeated, failed attempts to better himself, combined with the acting ability of both Corbett and Brambell, provide some of the most tear-jerking moments in comedy.

* PlayingGertrude: Wilfrid Brambell was only 49 when he began playing Albert Steptoe, who was supposed to be 63 when the series began; he was just 13 years older than Harry H. Corbett.

Right after it ended, the show received an equally-beloved ForeignRemake by Creator/NormanLear as ''Series/SanfordAndSon'', riding off of the success of Lear's previous remake of '''Til Death Do Us Part'', ''Series/AllInTheFamily''.

* FingerlessGloves: Albert is frequently seen wearing a ratty pair of woolen fingerless gloves to emphasise the poverty and squalour in which he has lived all his life.

* RepeatedRehearsalFailure: One episode has Harold practicing for a play and there is a line about his character owning "a string of polo ponies", however in rehearsals his father keeps running the phrase polo ponies together as poloponies [phonetic "pol-lop-pawnies"] and he and Harold get into a fight about the correct way to say it. Come the night of the play, Harold still manages to repeat that mistake on stage.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: An in-universe example occurs in "A Star is Born" when Albert is recruited at the last minute to act in a play which Harold has already been cast as the leading man. The initial rehearsal is a disaster, with Albert repeatedly misreading words in the script (not helped by "polo ponies" being mistyped as "poloponies"[[note]] A joke previously seen in an episode of ''Series/TheHoneymooners'', with Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton playing comparable roles to Harold and Albert, respectively; whether or not this is a coincidence is unclear.[[/note]]) and Harold getting DistractedByTheSexy. But the episode then cuts to the bows after opening night; the applause gets louder as Albert takes his bow, but dies out almost completely as Harold takes his (the leading lady, Nemone, is also visibly angry at Harold as she takes her bow). As if to rub salt in Harold's wound, the other cast members surprise Albert by inviting him to take a second bow.

** "The Party" and "A Perfect Christmas". The latter was the show's final episode.

** ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steptoe_and_Son_in_Murder_at_Oil_Drum_Lane Steptoe and Son in Muder at Oil Drum Lane]]''.

The show was noted for being a lot more gritty and down-to-earth than most other sitcoms of the age, focusing on two obviously poor, working class and downtrodden men, with most of the humour coming from the interactions between the characters rather than farce and slapstick, and their situation providing a great deal of pathos for the two characters. Picked up from a pilot episode in the [[GenreAnthology Anthology Series]] ''Comedy Playhouse'', it had two runs on Creator/TheBBC (1962-1965 and 1970-1974[[note]] The later run was made in colour, but many episodes from 1970-1972 only survive in black and white copies[[/note]]), and was adapted to radio as well as two feature films. More recently, there was a stage play called ''Steptoe and Son in Murder at Oil Drum Lane'', in which Harold returns to the junkyard in 2005, and is confronted by the ghost of Albert.

->''"Well that's that then."\\
"Bognor here we come!"''
-->The first and last lines from the series

* SirSwearsALot: At the rate of 10p per swear, the contents of the swear—box, amounting to the sum of ₤80·³⁰ᵖ, the vast majority of which were contributed by Albert. More than eight times what they have in they have in their bank & building society accounts combined!
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Where the [[Series/SanfordAndSon Creator/NormanLear version]]was more modern and had a mix of difficult reality and heartfelt optimism, this series was much gritty, cynical, and even depressing.

* {{Tragedy}}: Both the TV and radio series fall into the tragicomedy category - comedic moments in what would otherwise be much more sombre.