Ray Galton

Galton and Simpson's Comedy Playhouse (BBC1) was black beyond belief. It had the Dr Who-ish premise of the world vacuum-cleaned empty of people. Except a mother and son in Hampton Wick.

At first I thought that a great blow for originality had been struck and the studio audience omitted. But they were there all right. It was just that they took a while to warm up and when they did they were appreciative. They liked the visual jokes best and so did I.

I was quite unprepared for the blazing loathing and passionate tension that still twangs between Steptoe and his son. As it can between any two people or peoples who are too close for comfort. It is the only comedy going that can follow the news (as it does) and not sound ridiculous.

The first episode was necessarily a tour of Clochemerle, introducing the inhabitants as they answered assorted calls of nature. The other, too, appeared to be wine and women. It is embarrassingly rich in talent. So much so that the cast list in the Radio Times doesn't bother to mention that the narrator is Peter Ustinov. Possibly the pissoir is by Picasso but they didn't bother to say so.

Steptoe and Son has swung TV humour into a brilliant new dimension. How distant it all seems from the days of Mr. Pastry and the lingering red-nosed humour of television's equivalents of Workers' Playtime. Instead of pumping out mere buffoonery or joke-a-minute patter, the little screen now thrives on adult comedy, tailored to the mood of the times.

Poignant moments lengthen all the time in Steptoe and his son stories. Writers Simpson and Galton take the most appalling risks - and somehow pull them off. Triumphantly.

Indeed, scriptwriters Galton and Simpson have gone further. They have tried to introduce characterisations and subtleties of relationship between Steptoe and his son which would not be out-of-place in so-called serious drama. But the old rituals of comedy have not been abandoned, thank goodness.

First, on BBC, it was a rollicking welcome back to Steptoe and Son. The two quarrelling scrap merchants were in peak form. With delightful surges of rhetoric, evil flashes of animal cunning, and the ever-developing like-hate relationship between father and son, this episode confirmed yet again that the junk-yard family is the best thing that has happened to TV comedy in years.