Steptoe and Son

Synopsis

Two Men. Two World Wars. Two lives knitted together as tight as a thrice darned sock. Bound together by birth, business and bloody bad luck, Albert and Harold Steptoe wake up every morning to the same old, same old, sickening sight of each other. Joined at the hip and heart, they bother, bicker and banter their way through life - toying with each others frailties like mean kittens. Do they even notice the world turning as they cling on? There are ladies if they would only look around them, and space travel... and Cliff Richard! "Open your eyes" we shout from the stalls! "Look up at the moon and count the stars!" But they can't. Or won't. Families, eh?

Our Review:

7 November 2012

Always cited as a prime example of the Golden Age of TV sitcom, Steptoe and Son was an unusual success story; you wouldn’t think stories about a couple of rag and bone men held much potential. Particularly since it was the epitome of lives of quiet, claustrophobic, desperation: Chekhov meets Beckett.

The play takes the shape of four episodes, set in a yard ingeniously re-imagined with an overstuffed cart full of rubbish and complete with carousel horse. Oddly enough, to me, whereas with the TV series, sympathies lay mostly with the son’s longing to escape, to better himself, here it is somehow reversed even though the father is still a whining manipulator, an expert in emotional blackmail, perhaps because he seems less sleazy and livelier whereas the former seems more of a violent bully. Excellent actors both, interestingly, there is little resemblance to the originals; even the notorious catchphrase pronounced with a different intonation.

In the fi...

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