UK News: York stages premiere of Steptoe and Son-Murder at Oil Drum Lane

York Theatre Royal to stage World Premiere of Steptoe and Son-Murder at Oil Drum Lane

York Theatre Royal is delighted to announce that this autumn two of television's greatest characters, Harold and Albert Steptoe, will be brought to life on stage in the UK for the first time by the television's original creator Ray Galton and fellow comedy writer John Antrobus in the York Theatre Royal production of Steptoe and Son – Murder at Oil Drum Lane. The play will have its World premiere at York Theatre Royal from 24 October – 12 November.

In the quiet streets of Oil Drum Lane in London stands a house, once belonging to a father and unmarried son who ran a decrepit rag-and-bone business. Today, the Steptoe house is now in the safe and loving hands of the National Trust as the last remaining example of a typical totters yard. Late one afternoon a lone figure arrives at the house. Who is he? Why has he such an interest in the house? And what does he know about a certain murder that took place there?

Writer Ray Galton said about the play, "When asked by John Antrobus how I felt about the possibility of putting STEPTOE AND SON on the stage I pondered long (5 or 10 minutes actually) and said I would on the following conditions: 

1. That the old man had at long last been murdered by his son Harold who comes home after years of living in South America where he has fled, to find the house has been taken over by The National Trust where he confronts the ghost of his father.

2. The director should be Roger Smith.

3. That we stage this at York Theatre Royal under the watchful eye of the theatre's artistic director Damian Cruden.

4. The last stipulation is a complete lie (I had never been there) but when we met Damian in York and saw the wonderful theatre he so brilliantly runs we were in no doubt this was the venue for us.

 York Theatre Royal's artistic director Damian Cruden said about the play, "We are all looking forward to working with Ray, John and Roger on Steptoe, this is a great opportunity for our audience to see this first production featuring two of the greatest comedy characters ever created. The quality of the writing, as one would expect fro writers of John and Rays calibre, is superb and for our company to be the originators is very exciting. I hope our audience will have as much fun watching the show as we are bound to have creating it."

Steptoe And Son was never conceived as a series but was delivered to the BBC as one of a Comedy Playhouse season of ten unrelated pieces, a series offered to writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson after Tony Hancock, whom they had served so marvellously, relinquished their services. The writers relished the opportunity and freedom to explore a world of comedy ideas and were naturally hesitant when the BBC's Light Entertainment chief - noting the hugely positive response to the first of the playlets, The Offer - asked them to turn it into a series. They agreed, secretly assuming that the two lead actors would refuse because of other commitments, but both Harry H Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell accepted and a classic was born.

The programme, which ran from 1962-74, was groundbreaking in many ways: it featured established stage/film actors playing humorous characters, not comedians creating extensions of their stage personas which, until this time, was the norm; it dealt with an underclass previously seen on television only in realistic dramas like Armchair Theatre; and its underlying theme of the son trying desperately to escape the clutches of his wily father imbued the series with a pathos and poignancy hitherto absent from the sitcom genre. For all these aspects, it was recognised then, and still holds its place now, as a landmark achievement, one of the most important - and, let us not forget, funny - situation comedies of all time.

Between them, writers Ray Galton and John Antrobus have written for some of Britain's best-known comedy actors of the last fifty years including Spike Milligan. Tony Hancock, Peter Sellers, Les Dawson, Sid James, Frankie Howerd, Marty Feldman, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett.

The play will be directed by Roger Smith whose numerous credits on stage include the award winning Duet for One (Duke of Yorks Theatre), Steaming (Comedy Theatre), The Understanding (with Ralph Richardson and Celia Johnson, Strand Theatre), Dario Fo's Trumpets and Raspberries (Phoenix theatre), and When Did You Last See You Trousers? written by Ray Galton and John Antrobus (Garrick Theatre).

Casting for Steptoe and Son – Murder at Oil Drum Lane will be announced soon.