Steptoe and Son
A chance meeting with scriptwriters Galton and Simpson, who had been successful with Hancock's Half Hour, changed Corbett's life. In 1962, Corbett appeared in "The Offer", an episode of the BBC's anthology series of one-off comedy plays, Comedy Playhouse, written by Galton and Simpson. He played Harold Steptoe, a rag-and-bone man living with his irascible widower father Albert (Wilfrid Brambell), in a junkyard with only their horse for company. Corbett was at the time working at the Bristol Old Vic where he appeared as Macbeth shortly before abandoning the stage for fame and fortune on TV.
The programme was a success and a full series followed, continuing, with breaks, until 1974, when the Christmas special became the final episode. Although the popularity of Steptoe and Son made Corbett a star, it ended his serious acting as he became irreversibly associated with Steptoe in the public eye. Before the series began Corbett had played Shakespeare's Richard II to great acclaim; however, when he played Hamlet in 1970 he felt both critics and audiences alike were not taking him seriously, because they could only see him as Harold Steptoe. Production of the sitcom was stressful as Brambell was an alcoholic often ill-prepared for rehearsals, forgetting his lines or movements. A tour of a Steptoe and Son stage show in Australia in 1977 proved a disaster. Brambell was drinking heavily, which sometimes affected his acting. However, the two men re-united in January 1981 for one final performance as Steptoe and Son in a commercial for Kenco coffee.
After the Steptoe and Son series officially finished, Corbett played the character again on radio (in a newly written sketch in 1979) as well as in two television commercials for Ajax Soap power and one for Kenco coffee. The Curse of Steptoe, a BBC TV play about Corbett and Brambell, was broadcast on 19 March 2008 on the British digital channel BBC Four, featuring Jason Isaacs as Corbett. The first broadcast gained the channel its highest audience figures to that date, based on overnight returns.
Read more about this topic: Harry H. Corbett