|
''The Curse of Steptoe'' is a television play which was first broadcast on 19 March 2008 on BBC Four as part of a season of dramas about television personalities. It stars Jason Isaacs as Harry H. Corbett and Phil Davis as Wilfrid Brambell. The drama centres on the actors' on- and off-screen relationship during the making of the BBC sitcom ''Steptoe and Son'', and is based on interviews with colleagues, friends and family of the actors, and the ''Steptoe'' writers, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.〔(BBC press release ) (11/11/07)〕 The screenplay was written by Brian Fillis, also responsible for the similarly themed 2006 drama ''Fear of Fanny'', which is about television personality Fanny Cradock off-screen. The 66-minute film is directed by Michael Samuels and produced by Ben Bickerton. The drama was widely acclaimed and won the Royal Television Society Award 2008 for "Single Drama".〔("Royal Television Society Awards 2008" ), Grosvenor House Hotel, 17 March 2009. Retrieved on 2011-04-15.〕 However, the drama generated controversy due to perceived historical inaccuracies, and following complaints to the BBC by Corbett's family, two revised versions of the drama have been broadcast. Despite these revisions, an investigation by the BBC Trust found that the drama was still unfair and inaccurate. DVDs of the drama have been withdrawn from sale, and there will be no future broadcasts without further editing. ==Plot summary== The play covers the entire history of the televised series, skipping over the five-year break between 1965 and 1970 when no episodes were recorded. It starts with Corbett, then a rising Shakespearean actor, starring as ''Richard II'' at Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, looking beyond that to ''Henry V'' at the Old Vic, and tipped to eclipse Gielgud. Meanwhile, across town at the BBC Television Centre, writers Galton and Simpson have parted from their longtime star, Tony Hancock, and are given a free hand. They write a series of one-off plays starring actors, not comics who will expect every line to contain a laugh. ''The Offer'', in which they cast Corbett, is wildly successful and evolves into an uneasy, decade-long comedy partnership between Corbett and the alcoholic, self-loathing homosexual Brambell. Corbett's stage career fades quickly from typecasting, and his first marriage to comic actress Sheila Steafel suffers from his womanising, while Brambell's drinking and his relaxed approach to acting cause conflict between him and Corbett, a method actor once described as "the British Marlon Brando". Off-screen, Brambell is secretive and dislikes the trappings of fame, and his worst fears are realised when, entrapped by a policeman in a public toilet, he is prosecuted for persistently importuning for an immoral purpose, and the details of his failed marriage are published in the newspapers. The show, and the actors' careers, are milked dry. Corbett is unable to obtain work that is not a variation on his cockney rag and bone man persona. At the start, Corbett as Richard II had spoken the words "I wasted time and now doth time waste me," and at the end he says them to himself as he awaits his cue in a live recording of ''Steptoe and Son''. Finally Corbett is depicted as unable to find any work except pantomime or a stage version of ''Steptoe'' in Australia. This, however, was untrue, as Corbett appeared in several films in the late 1970s. The script also implies that Corbett was reluctant to take part in the tour, when it was in fact his suggestion. The idea was put to him by a theatre producer. Having then contacted Wilfrid Brambell to see if he was available, it was Corbett who put the idea forward to writers Galton and Simpson, not the other way round. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Curse of Steptoe」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|