Steptoe and Son in Murder at Oil Drum Lane

This show has now closed, click here for a listing of current and future London shows

Opened 22 February 2006, closed 15 April 2006 at the Comedy Theatre in London.

A new comedy Steptoe and Son in Murder at Oil Drum Lane written by Ray Galton and John Antrobus.

"Steptoe and Son in Murder at Oil Drum Lane, a new play about the pair, makes for a riveting night" The Independent

Based on the classic 1960s/70s television characters 'Harold' and 'Albert' from the Steptoe and Son, this new comedy has been co-written by the show's original creator Ray Galton and is set somewhere in the future. 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. Albert is long dead - finally killed in a fit of pique by Harold hurling an assegai through the door of the karzy. Harold has done a bunk to South America to escape being sentenced to the loony bin. But now, some years later, he slips back into the country to revisit the scene of the crime... only to discover the ghost of Albert waiting for his return...

For the first time on stage in an intriguing new story, Harold and Albert are once again at each other's throats as we get the full, unexpurgated account of their hilarious relationship from cradle to the grave... and beyond.

"This is a perfect night for nostalgia seekers, but the show deserves to win a new young audience, too, for its comedy is both timeless and classic" The Daily Telegraph

Following a two month season in London's West End, Steptoe and Son in Murder at Oil Drum Lane went on a three month UK tour, playing at the following theatre:

Plymouth - Theatre Royal - 21 to 26 August 2006
Manchester - Lowry - 28 August to 2 September 2006
Glasgow - Theatre Royal - 4 to 9 September 2006
Nottingham - Theatre Royal - 11 to 16 September 2006
Bromley - Churchill Theatre - 18 to 23 September 2006
Dartford - Orchard Theatre - 25 to 30 September 2006
Richmond - Richmond Theatre - 2 to 7 October 2006
Break
Billingham - Forum Theatre - 16 to 21 October 2006
Brighton - Theatre Royal - 23 to 28 October 2006
Break
Bath - Theatre Royal - 13 to 18 November 2006

Ray Galton on writing the new Steptoe and Son in Murder at Oil Drum Lane stage play: "I wasn't interested at all in writing the further adventures of Steptoe and Son and, apart from anything else, the two actors had died... But then I did have an idea which I was happy to work with - and that was if Harold has murdered the old man and has got away. He always promised to do so in every show, didn't he? "I'll kill you, I'll kill you!", he'd keep saying, so on that proviso I agreed. And once that was decided it became quite interesting... But what we didn't want to do was have replicas of Harry H Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell or have actors doing impressions of them. We thought that would be boring, unfair to the actors and unfair to the audience. But at the same time we had to make them acceptable to people coming to see the play; they won't be expecting Harry and Wilfrid, but they will be after actors who look a bit like them and sound a bit like them, so we've tried to match height and body shape and so on, and asked the actors to deliver the words in a way that is acceptable while not being a Dead Ringers impression."

Steptoe and Son was originally created and written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson and starred Harry H Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell. Although originally written as a one-off comedy Steptoe and Son was developed into a series that run on television for 12 years, from 1962 to 1974. The series was groundbreaking in many ways, for example it dealt with an underclass previously seen on television only in realistic dramas, not sitcoms; 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.