TV preview by Steve Bennett

The final offering in the BBC’s Landmark Sitcom season returns to the fathers of the genre, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, for that classic of existential entrapment: Steptoe And Son.

This episode, A Winter’s Tale, originally ran in 1970, and only a low-quality black and white version exists, not the colour version as first broadcast. And as soon as the remake starts, it’s clear we are on very familiar Steptoe territory.

One of the most famous scenes from the entire show has ‘dirty old man’ Albert eating pickled onions in a bath. So here, another rarity as he takes a shower, taking the washing-up in with him.

More familiar is the tone of thwarted ambition. Harold’s aspiring to climb the social ladder, trying to go skiing in the Austrian Alps, the ultimate symbol of the nouveau riche. ‘What’s wrong with Bognor!’ growls Albert, naturally furious that his son might have ambitions to break out of their squalid life together, an anger that’s driven by the fear he’d be left old and alone. 

Not that Harold would ever fit in on the slopes of Obergurgl, he’s cobbled together the kit from his rag and bone round – even if his skis aren’t the same length (‘Well, I’ll cut a bit off, won’t I?’) and he’s got welding goggles rather than a ski mask. And to practice, he cobbles together a nursery piste in the back garden of their Oil Drum Lane home

Their dialogue follows the usual pattern of bitter antagonism, a pretty relentless tone. Harold fantasises about doing in his old man Psycho-style in the shower and thinking that he ought to have been put down now he’s served his three-score years and ten.  But both know, deep down, they cannot change their situation.

The script holds up reasonably well – though not as robustly as Galton and Simpson’s other classic, Hancock, which was revived last week. Only one exchange jars to modern ears as Harold eyes up the suntanned women in the holiday brochure. ‘I want brown crumpet. There ain’t no brown crumpet in England in February,’ he laments.

‘There’s plenty around here. We’re the only white family left in the street,’ Albert replies.

The inevitable reaction to all these remakes is to compare the new actors with the originals, however difficult it is to live up to the comedy icons. If you only remember Jeff Rawle as the ineffectual editor George from Drop the Dead Donkey, you’ll be surprised to see how well he does fills Wilfrid Brambell’s grubby long-johns with his grumpy, embittered snarl. Ed Coleman doesn’t quite carry the same subtle mischief as Harry H. Corbett, to the detriment of the chemistry between the pair. 

But had the originals not existed, you’d easily buy these two as a father and son whose destinies are inseparably entangled, however much they would wish it otherwise.

•  Lost Sitcoms: Steptoe And Son is on BBC Four at 9pm tonight. Compare and contrast with the original here.

Review date: 14 Sep 2016
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett