Inspired by Simon’s post I’ve been giving some thought to my holiday reading this year. As I’m currently restraining myself from buying anything new I’m going to find it difficult to pass the airport exclusive stands. Like a smuggler who tries to pass through customs as quickly as possible on the way in to Heathrow, I’ll be dashing past Waterstone’s with my head down on the way out. But I’m determined to keep plundering my existing stock of books.
I’m currently halfway through Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing. It’s taking me so long to read that I’ll probably be taking it away with me in a couple of weeks time. And if I can stomach any more McCarthy I might also pack Cities of the Plain, the final part of his Border trilogy. Although experience has taught me that it’s wise to leave long periods of rest between McCarthy novels.
This weekend it’s the annual harbour festival in Bristol. Finding the heat and crowds overwhelming yesterday, I excused myself for an hour to find a quiet and shady tree to read by. I noticed only one other reader in my field of vision, a young lady halfway through The God of Small Things. So a chance inspiration for my next title.
The other books will possibly be a choice between The Bone People by Keri Hulme, something else by Joseph Conrad or Graham Greene (often good for holidays). Or I may allow my wife to buy an airport exclusive for me. Which isn’t really cheating.
The Curse of Galton and Simpson
The BBC are currently showing a short season of dramas about much loved heroes of British comedy, with an emphasis on television stars who had a bloody hard time of it in their personal life. The first film, The Curse of Steptoe, followed the careers of Harry H.Corbett and Wilfred Brambell – stars of Steptoe and Son, arguably the best comedy series ever made which ran between 1962 and 1974. For me, Steptoe and Son took the hardest premise for a television series and ran with it. A small set, two main characters trapped in their horrible lives and constantly arguing. A life with no escape. Old man Steptoe, disgusting, decrepid, selfish but oddly compelling, and his depressed son Harold, still living at home although fast approaching middle age; a wasted life with alternatives always beyond his grasp. Similarities between the Galton and Simpson scripts have been made with Pinter and Beckett and they are worthy ones; the writing is often exceptional – the comedy always shrouded in the bleak and inevitable.
In The Curse of Steptoe, Harry H.Corbett (played brilliantly by Jason Isaacs) remarks “it’s like Waiting for Godot, although Godot never bloody comes” when waiting for the perpetually late Wilfred Brambell (Phil Davis) at an early read through. Corbett, a highly regarded British stage actor in the early 1960s who was mentioned in the same breath as Albert Finney and dubbed the British Marlon Brando, is enticed by the brilliance of a Galton and Simpson one-off television play, against the better judgment of his theatrical peers, including the director Joan Greenwood. The writing team, who’d enjoyed great success with Tony Hancock, were looking to escape from the shackles of situation comedy, but all are quickly sucked into the even greater success of Steptoe and Son. The series rolls on and on, the writers falling slowly into despair as the situations are exhausted, and the actors into the grim realisation that they will never escape their celebrated creations. The stars are seen having lunch over the years in the BBC bar, their early enthusiasm turning to the frustration over wasted lives worthy of the on screen father and son. The final bar shot sees them seated in drag, showing how stretched and uninspired the situations had become.
Phil Davis was a slight disappointment as Wilfred Brambell/Albert Steptoe. Although he looked the part, he failed to fully capture the physical weakness and vocal mannerisms of the man. I’d always imagined a well turned out gent (akin to the role he played opposite The Beatles in A Hard Days Night) who scrubbed down well to play the dirty old man of Shepherds Bush. Davis seemed to fall somewhere in between. Jason Isaacs, however, was outstanding and as well as delivering a spot on impersonation of Corbett, his sometimes very odd vocal delivery, added depth to a frustrated and not wholly likeable man. Neither revelled in the lives of laughter expected from the stars of sitcom. Brambell was a boozy homosexual, haunted by his failed marriage and subsequent arrest for soliciting himself in a public toilet. Corbett, also drawn to the booze in later years, also looked back on a failed marriage and an unfulfilled career. One of the most uncomfortable scenes in Steptoe and Son is where Harold tries and fails to become an actor, feebly recreating the famous contender scene from On the Waterfront. The British Marlon Brando he would never be.
An exceptional film, The Curse of Steptoe appears to be ending happily before whipping the carpet from under your feet. Corbett, having become a father himself in a new relationship, takes Brambell quietly to one side and they agree to finally quit their roles. Brambell is seen fleetingly in a new relationship of his own with a young man. But just as it’s all looking rosy, and just when you’re thinking “didn’t they get back together again for a final tour of Australia?”, we see Corbett in the final scene, already finding it difficult to find work post-Steptoe, receive that fateful phone call… Like the bleakest of situations for Harold Steptoe, there really was no escape.
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