The Curse of Steptoe

The story of Harry H. Corbett's (Jason Isaacs') decline in fortune, from an aspiring star of Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop to a pathetic wreck in the mid-Eighties, reduced to playing pantomime and embarking on a pointless tour of Australia in a stage version of Steptoe and Son, is a familiar one. Although brilliant in his portrayal of Harold Steptoe, he became so typecast that no one could see him performing anything else. Wilfrid Brambell (Phil Davis) experienced no such agonies - as a character-actor, he was glad of the regular work. Nonetheless he had his own personal problems - as a closet homosexual at a time when it was illegal in Britain, he was reduced to making brief assignations in public rest-rooms. Apparently Brian Fillis' drama upset the Corbett family due to its portrayal of the Brambell/ Corbett professional relationship; as a result, the drama is now prefaced with a warning that some of the scenes are fictionalized versions of the truth. One wonders why there was so much fuss: the relationship between the two actors is portrayed as cordial on set, while off-set they chose to lead totally separate lives. Once the series finished in 1974 (on television, at least) they said goodbye to one another quite civilly. The drama suggests that Corbett was in a sense a victim of his own desire for fame and fortune - goaded by Tom Sloan (Roger Allam), the BBC's long-serving head of comedy - he agreed to make series after series, even though he protests to his wife Sheila Steafel (Zoe Tapper) that he will quit as soon as humanly possible. Isaacs and Davis give convincing characterizations; they capture the mannerisms of the two actors quite uncannily.

Steptoe & Son (remade in the U.S as 'Sanford & Son') was one of the seminal British TV sitcoms of the 1960s, and owes a lot to the 'Angry young man' style of theatre and film that came the decade before. Out of that theatre came a slew of gifted actors like Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, Richard Harris, Richard Burton, Laurence Harvey and the underrated Harry H Corbett.

That Corbett's career never reached the heights of the others is the subject of this solid and extremely well acted drama about how he found such success in the BBC sitcom that he was forever stereotyped and unable to break the mould or be accepted as the accomplished stage actor he was. 'Curse' is indeed apt to this predicament, the shows immediate success destroyed any chance he had of regaining his serious career. As he so poignantly states in one scene (and i admit i'm paraphrasing here) "I will forever be known as a rag and bone man".

Jason Isaacs does a splendid job as Corbett, his optimism slowly wearing away as his TV star shines. Trapped by immediate success he rues the day he agreed to do the show. At first the resemblance between the younger Corbett and Isaacs is superficial but once the show reappeared after a 5 year break in the 1970s, the resemblance between the two is striking, and the mannerisms are uncanny too (even the voice). Praise too for Phil Davis for his excellent portrayal of the sad and lonely Brambell, a man who also rues the day he did the show, but for very different reasons.

I cannot fault the two leads and all the actors are marvellous as is the period detail. My grumble is that this could have been a much better drama if the script had been longer and taken the film to a more logical conclusion (Corbetts death in 1982). It is well known that Corbett or Brambell didn't really get on (amazingly Brambell was only 13 years older than Corbett)so a deeper insight into that conflict would have been good. It would also have made more sense to show the ill fated tour of Australia and their post-Steptoe careers, and oddly no mention is made of the two Steptoe feature films they did in the early 1970s.

However this drama shows that Isaacs is a much better actor than his Hollywood career has so far shown. Phil Davis is also still one of the best supporting actors in Britain.

As part of broadening his acting experience, stage actor Harry Corbett signs on to take part in an one-off BBC comedy drama about a rag-and-bone man and his father, to be played by Wilfred Brambell. As "Britain's answer to Marlon Brando" Corbett enjoys the experience but quickly plans to move back to the stage whenever it transpires that the one-off was popular enough to get a series – "Steptoe & Son". Both actors accept and the show is an instant success, running into several seasons. However the success plays on the two actors in different ways; Corbett becoming increasingly frustrated at the dominance of Steptoe in his career, while Brambell struggles with his own self-loathing, loneliness and sexual tastes.

The usual foul up with Sky's auto-tune service (no wonder so many people throw in the towel and get Sky+) meant that I missed the first five minutes of this film but it didn't seem to matter so much because the quality here was consistent and high enough to engage even with one short scene. To many I'm sure the film will be a matter of common knowledge in its portrayal of the careers of Brambell and Corbett but for me it was all new. Of course I have seen Steptoe & Son myself and before that had the accepted wisdom of it as a classic but I was not aware of the behind-the-scenes stories. What this film does so expertly is to not really get into the very specific events (although these are part of the story) but rather play the story out within the characters themselves.

What I mean is, rather than Brambell's arrest being interesting because it happened, it is interesting in regards how it affected him. This is an important approach within the material because key to the film is the "happening" of Steptoe, and the fact that it kept happening. As an event it is done in the early stages but as an impact it is the whole story. It was interesting to see this played out and it points clearly to the main selling point of the film – the two leads. Isaacs is really good. At first I didn't see how he would do it but he not only pulls off a great "impression" of the Corbett we know but also finds a real person within that he can deliver. It is tragic to watch fame extinguish his hopes and aims over the course of years and his performance gets this sense of decline just right and there is not a flick of a switch to do it. Davis is just as good with a typically pained and tragic turn even if, for Brambell, there was the suggestion of more of a "happy" ending in the film. Allam, Kinnear and Gorman play the writers/producers well but the former is lumbered with a really bad beard, perhaps to try and stop the "oh look its him offa Torchwood" effect. Samuels' direction of his cast is excellent and he also benefits them with good shots but Fillis deserves a lot of praise for this script.

Overall then this is a great film that goes past the events to see the pain and the change within the two famous characters. It is not a hard watch by any means, but it is not a fun one either. A superior drama that deserves to be given a bigger platform than it got on BBC4.

Jason Issacs was on top form as Corbett and Phil Davis was absolutely stunning as the tragic Wilfred Brambell all in all one of the best pieces of drama to grace the BBC in a hell of long time. The whole affair although telling a sometimes very dark tale was handled with a great deal of affection and care. Having loved Steptoe & Son from an early age I will certainly view it in a different light knowing the heartache it appears to have caused the Brambell and Corbett. Costumes and sets were spot on and the piece really gave you a feel for how writers and performers of that era behaved towards one another. Much like the actual show I regret this show having to end as it left me wanting more from two of the finest most underrated actors in the UK.

I have just finished reading Susannah Corbett's biography of her father. I have seen The Curse of Steptoe and this abomination of a production forms the basis of the last chapter. Simply, there was no bad blood between Harry H and Wilf B. Yes, they weren't close, and they did have their minor fallings outs, but there was always an immense respect between the two. I find these BBC revisionist biopics very strange and suspicious - trading on much loved memories, with the view of turning them into cheap sensationalism. All a bit gutter press in my view, though most peoples' responses today will undoubtedly be 'whatever - anything goes'. For anyone wishing to read the truth, I wholeheartedly recommend 'The Front Legs of the Cow' by Susannah Corbett.