{"id":339438,"date":"2025-12-28T15:23:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T15:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/339438\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T15:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T15:23:09","slug":"christmas-steptoe-and-son-script-unearthed-at-york-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/339438\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Steptoe and Son script unearthed at York University"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766238669_168_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/a9d42f00-e3e0-11f0-a09a-e7bcd1760d69.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"BBC A black and white image of a young man staring up at an older man. The younger man has a white hat and the older man is wearing a neck scarf and black jacket.\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>BBC<\/p>\n<p>Steptoe and Son starred Harry H. Corbett as Harold and Wilfrid Brambell as his father Albert<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">An unseen script for Steptoe and Son script intended for Christmas 1963 has been discovered at the University of York.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Starring Harry H. Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell as struggling rag-and-bone men Harold and Albert Steptoe, the sitcom reached audiences of more than 28 million in it is heyday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, the script was discovered by archivists at the Borthwick Institute for Archives who believe it may have been shelved due to time pressures.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Keeper of the archives and special collections at the University of York, Gary Brannan, described the sketch as a capsule of British culture &#8220;centred around the humour of being miserable at Christmas&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The storyline sees Harold trying to throw a lavish party for his trendy, upwardly mobile friends while dealing with Albert&#8217;s lack of festive spirit &#8211; before both come down with a case of chicken pox on Christmas morning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Mr Brannan said: &#8220;It&#8217;s a very British thing to want to laugh at horrible people having a miserable time at Christmas and all the ingredients of the way Christmas is shaped by our national identity are there: the food, the rows, the moaning, unwanted gifts and dodgy decorations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766238669_168_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/e746ed50-e3e0-11f0-a09a-e7bcd1760d69.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"University of York An academic in a green jacket and glasses sits at a desk reading a pile of papers\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>University of York<\/p>\n<p>Gary Brannan is keeper of the Archives and Special Collections at the University of York<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Mr Brannan suggested the likely reason for its abandonment was that the cast and crew did not have the time or availability to record it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;I think the main reason they didn&#8217;t proceed is that they had just performed a sketch at the Royal Variety Performance at the start of November and were about to begin recording the second series of Steptoe and Son in December,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">However elements from the script were recycled and used for a Christmas special in 1973.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;Luckily, this script saw the light of day eventually,&#8221; said Mr Brannan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;Its discovery shows we&#8217;re always enjoying comedy, laughter and entertainment at Christmas and a good idea never stops being a good idea, even 10 years later.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BBC Steptoe and Son starred Harry H. Corbett as Harold and Wilfrid Brambell as his father Albert An&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-339438","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}