Ray Galton & Alan Simpson interview (Mark Lawson, 2008)

[Music] ray Gorton and Alan Simpson were introduced to each other by TB meeting while being treated for the lung disease that in the era before antibiotics was a plague to generations but their names remain linked by TV after meeting the comedian Tony Hancock while writing for radio in the 1950s they suggested a 30-minute television show for the performer which became Hancock's half hour its catchphrases still quoted today the writing Jiro then created a remarkable on-screen double act in the rag-and-bone sitcom Steptoe and son Thornton and Simpson have not written together for 30 years but DVD and repeat channels have made their work some of the longest lasting 1/2 hours in entertainment history like Marks & Spencer Gilbert and Sullivan Morgan why do you get bracketed together always with with that and between you has that ever annoyed either of you has it not am I not to my mother we started off as Simpson and Gordon and then some 60 something we suddenly became Gorton and Simpson which I think my mother objected they sometimes they left the Owen off the Ray gold and our the Simpson and then we've been Regan Lee Allen simple simpleton yeah we did a sit we did a show with Hank got where where we always used to get he's night long yeah the local paper will be telling hand click or you know turn you know to attorney hand at hand and saying all those get his name wrong and it's one of those strange things if the generalization is true that serious drama has tended to be written by one person and comedy has pretty much always been written by two people by Geo's what why do you think that is you need a sounding board really what you don't waste on it but when when we all work together in one building a Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes Allen and myself we found that spike would come in quite often into our room and say oh listen to this you must hear this what do you think of this what do you think about and there it would occasionally as well but we never did that to them because you know we do it to each other well in the same as a joke has two parts of it it has the setup and the punch line and as even that's why two people writing together we do become a bit a bit what's the what's the word I'm trying to think of where you finish each other's sentences we used to get a lot of that annoying nothing Lawrence marks and Morris grin hooray birds of a feather and many other comedies they once told me that a writing partnership is like a marriage you shattered each other all the time and you don't have sex do you recognize that description of a writing partnership well I bet not so much the other way around with us but yeah the second more time with Allan hours in each other's company has been more done than we ever did with our wives probably better yeah that's the way you really get to know a person and yeah the idea of finishing sentences having the same thoughts terse all the time between us the the thing about being we were slow writers yeah basically and that's why it took you so long that's why we spent so much time in each other's company sound writers knock it off those writers have their journalistic backgrounds write very quickly you know it's like been a journalist I said I want 500 words now about something and I just do it yeah well we could never do but to sit and think all day long you know sometimes we go three days without writing a word we used to take a run up to suggest something and the other one said nothing many didn't like it and then all day go by without any you know because and we found out three days later that we'd forgotten whose turn it was to say something this is when you get to each other but well maybe that's an important point because it is the question that double acts are always asked whether they're writers or performers is whether you have ever ended up hating each other no no no no it's not worth if that be impossible to work under those conditions I mean the way of Gilbert and Sullivan espoused to work that would be impossible that why they didn't smear they didn't speak and one of them wrote the words and stuck it onto the door and that he couldn't well now cut yet our four sentence and you have to stick out the door for me to write the other now I wouldn't work tolerance of my moods and absences from from the writing table quite clear but I would have gone absolutely banana listen ballistics but I would go out and not return and things that happened for hours sometimes and there would you be I'm not telling you didn't tell my wife and I didn't tell our neither but yeah and and and really the silence is between us having said you know we get on well we do really but the silence is between us was resentment well alright turn up the idea down come on yourself then or something like that he wouldn't know what this silence was about or any else and so the science would go on for days sometimes when he started working together did you make each other laugh were you aware of that I can't remember any great peals of laughter alright I think Ray is a radial after than I am I always think you know it's it's I was found it very difficult anywhere difficult crafted far too serious the lava ray was a dreadful old I mean every show we ever did Hancock and Steptoe out at the dress rehearsal he be rewriting in the in the box II hated every and I said say so it's gonna be all right yeah when the audience get in yeah because you look sort of now is it that's a funny show and that has a funny yeah so you didn't think so at the time but no does some people have some people offers and some on I mean I'm you know appreciate appreciate humor appreciate from of you think so no it's for nothing yeah that's great yeah never heard the peep out of me or Alan you're more like a comedian just ticking the jokes in general we say smarter though you know if it comes a good lines open yeah you smile baby wasn't a thoughtful spy could laugh we would hear spite laugh at himself at his own work you know a week he was a manic-depressive that maybe yeah we never used to say all that someone has had great line or we'd be quietly confident let me finish the script that we knew wasn't bad we couldn't wait you know they'd like to get it tight down and the first read-through and we sit there I suppose a little bit smug thinking when you won't lay buried this this is gonna do but blood donor you knew that blood donor you knew we knew that was gonna work hanka was a great talking about laughed he was a great audience he is the fear is to really laugh out loud to know if he there's something tickle him so that was so if we written the script that we knew that knew would appeal to him leastly look forward to seeing it yeah I've been told by doctors and nurses often that even now they can't get through a day taking blood samples without somebody or more than one person going into the blood donor routine won't hurt that's like pick on the end of your thumb well I'll bid you good-day then thank you very much to get in touch with me okay have me tea and biscuits you came here to give us some of your blood what are you just in it that's just a smear it may be just a smear too you may but its life and dip the Sun Gordon I've just taken a sample to test sample how much you love then what a pint of course why do you come raving mad we must be joking a pint is a perfectly normal Kanta to to take you don't seriously expect me to believe that I mean I came in here in all good faith to help me country I don't mind giving a reasonable amount but a pipe that's very nearly an armful it was Hancock's after after the performance of it he came to hate it but the same time when he really got because everyone would say it yeah but also that line because when sometimes people sometimes slightly misquoted almost an armful or whatever yeah but it's the precision isn't absolutely I'm glad you're not because this is one of the points about where we used to spend so much time probably the line started that's an armful and then one of us would have said that's nearly an hour for us better and then the uh not seen ah yeah but better still barely nearly an hour for because it gets more and why you say precise but it's also mysteriously it it's funnier flaps yeah absolutely are you still gonna laughing you say a pine that's an armful it's not as not as good as this very nearly an armful and I tell you that nothing so important it was anything but is the is the the rhythm of a line you know one syllable too many and the last dead it's gone you've got too many you know too many syllables the rhythm is perfect especially when you were working with someone at Hancock who had an instinct for the rhythm of a line it was it was a you've got great value from being very finicky about the construction very important don't do it's not enough to be funny it's gotta be constructing it correctly the greatest compliment I was ever pay to us when we started doing a show called the comedy Playhouse we were started working with actors up until then we've been working with comedians or comic your comic character calm encounters and we started when three straight actors and we went to a rehearsal once and one of these actors came out and said you know I said it's very interesting working there buddy yours criticals we don't have to rewrite anything but it suddenly made me realize some writers do the script and don't even go to rehearsals and the actors feel and the actors felt free to change the construct and change the world you know a most important part is is that that aspect of the variety it's the most important part but seeing of it I suppose the the blood donor in many respects from our point of view was the perfect construction we and we knew I was gonna finish before we started which is a great help and very unusual for us very unusual we never used to know the end we used to get to the page 21 and there's one more page there to do the ending and another two days to do the last page never knew how to finish it fury aged me when I first saw dad's army because when they couldn't think of anything to finish they just used to suddenly have something blow up and then freeze the flame unless the bats eat why didn't we think of freeze frame freeze a frame and bring up the credits but we were used to spend hours trying to think of an ending and you're from that generation that you you grew up leading up to the war and then during the Ivar's presumably I haven't quite perfected it the war particular we've met you know in that the war I was nine when it happen it broke out nine to attend 1939 I was just 10 just before they my tenth birthday and the very first thing I heard we listening to Chamberlain saying you know it's saying that - no such undertaking have been given we are now at war with Nazi Europe in the air base our own way I was out of the house around the corner in the recreation grill sitting in an air raid shelters shivering with fear thinking any minute now going to be blown to smithereens and nobody else nothing nobody else came in in this era IRA then after about a half an hour the aura the all-clear went I'll sort of sheep as he went back out I said where you been that's happening on the air-raid shelter so what do you could do that for us it caused the air-raid siren went you know so my first memory was and I was in fear for the next four and a half years and when I met rice at all now he said I loved it you know he thought it was a great great fun you weren't frightened by the wall no I was I hated the Blitz because they had to go down down the array children hated all that but battle Britain was okay because we stand outside and watch it all happen and of course the buzz bombs whether they were all right all right long as you remember - it makes yourself scared once the once the Indians stopped I can say to the native the engine stopped and that was well I know I know anything now in middle of our street watching just Doodlebug coming over and I was with a couple of friends one way that's going and then the engine stopped and he immediately did that and it's diving straight for us and we didn't know what that we were rushed in all directions and then to his house because that was the nearest and then everybody in those days just to keep the key on a piece of string through the letterbox you know put hands in let but to pull the string out and they had the key on you and get it and we trying to do that in order to get through his house to get to the air-raid shelter and there was so much squabbling I don't with the key in the piece of string just threw ourselves on the floor and hope for the best and like all bombs and things like that explosions they always seemed much nearer than they are and I think the buzz bomb when it came down got caught in the electricity pylon you know so I didn't really leave school because uh when we come here coming up too early leaving it was bomb damaged so I didn't go back and that was it never saw me again but no you never officially left you just know they bought the school nobody said anything nobody said anything but you both left at 16 yeah 14 14 14 I thought I always remember going to see the headmaster with my mother anything said but now what does he want to do and demands that he wants to be he wants to be a writer it wants to be a journalist that was didn't know he was a good journalist the I wanted to be a sports journalist because I could say the football matches for nothing that was the idea of evening and the gedion and get the best seat and he said she said he wants to be a journalist and he loved he said he said there's no amazing so they all want to be something like that is it during the war he said they will want the be Spitfire pilots he said I if I were you I'd get him a good job in the city you know where we can so that's exactly what happened I've got a job in in the City of London oh they're in the shipping insurance agents I got a job at the transport house in Smith square as in the post Department transporting general workers yeah wonderful wonderful place it was I really enjoyed it here and were the people indigo but I remember coming back well not as we did do the same thing rush up the stairs more than underground get on the bus get on queued get on a bass snare here sigh one night I I just stopped at a light came down and hit me I know it's dramatic but you know this is the way I remember it and I just stood still on the steps that's how I'll keep doing this I've got no there's something else in life other than this and it was I've got TB winning the sanitary well that's the point would she meet I think it's impossible for people who didn't live through that time to imagine now but was TB something people actively feared and they way they wouldn't have AIDS or avian flu or whatever absolutely how many the white man's burden was nobody there was a death sentence ring a bell time you know when I was taken to my mother I was seeing a girl whose father ran a quite a large sweet shop in Warrington and my mother was working for him part-time and he told her on one side I've been I've gone into the sanatorium he said I think you should realize that when your son comes out of the sanatorium there's no way that he's gonna carry on with my daughter wait yeah I mean that was thought it was it was like leprosy honey you know there's a very very contagious disease you know there's before the drugs came on the scene so it was it I mean I would probably tell you but he was given six weeks to live and I I'd I thought that the end in here and the guy was given the last rites tonight I had a hemorrhage the first thing he knew but it was blood with me I'm kind to work it on the bass and I started you know coughed up blood no no a full hemorrhage that night in bed yeah I thought well yeah they're natural that was the best thing that could happen because it cleared all the rubbish out and I'll start with healing as it turned out I we found this out in you know later I had every symptom known to mankind except for the one thing blood doesn't know no chopin thing at the piano and blood all over the keyboard nothing like that and the once a breathlessness and III sweating night sweating there I was thin I was only nine stone for haha no six-foot-three sweat night sweats tired terribly tired yeah no energy and cough and all the symptoms except the blood and and the local Judy please no no no just you know take some malt and cough mixture I said my life was saved by my brother coming home on leave and look take took one look at me and got me to the hospital to have an x-ray and see if you say this is before antibiotics drugs so the only treatment was to go to a sanitarium yes we studied the average day was about three years and that was if he was if you were getting well two years was considered to be a you know spit in the coughed up you know that's the kind of imagine with him he's only there for two years and the treatment was what it was bed rest bed rest yes I was I was the first thing I well I did have the artificial pneumothorax as well which was the air birthday this expansion so that was why they they would collapse your lung yes yeah to try to force out the tea but I was also I was on bed rest for a year and never got out of bed for a year and I remember the first time I heard that the five nurses standing around me holding me up and the pain that was shooting up my legs from putting weight on them for the first time but after a short fairly short space of time I was transferred to if I was in a tube a lead room with her and I was transferred to a four bedroom which way was already ensconced and another fellow who became a close friend so there were four of us and that's what we really met what was the first thing you said to each other do you remember no probably say the P probably said are you gonna eat that the thing that I've seen photographs of these sanatoriums the thing that amazed me is everyone's smoking but we have smoking hours I mean stop but all the doctors smoked it nobody knew that people thought it was good for you because it you know made your coffin it opened up a lungs you know a bit not taking an inhaler you know what all the efforts were saying how good they were it seems amazing talking to you to now in your late seventies about being that close to death sixty years ago almost didn't it has it has it marked you psychologically do you feel you escaped I guess so yeah and the thing is we can't speak her right here but with in my case I started getting better immediately after having the hemorrhage that apparently was the best thing that could have happened to me from then on each month went past and he said dark coming along yeah better yes good I've also had gone down to nine just over nine stone when I after 13 months I was weighed and I was 10 stone for having put on weight within one year I was 15 stone something I've got still got stretch marks all over my body up the inside of my legs you know from when I get a film Lee putting on this weight so suddenly five stone in a year and I never looked back from that point of view yeah it's funny I mean I thought so that when I went to used to get medical examination and strips off you could sit here the doctor and the nurse guy and on your back I thought I'd been flagellated thought I'd went on in that sanatorium that very golden do to you and that's it was you know it still got those marks yeah Alan Alan was convinced that the the only way out because he was absolutely terrified of surgery and still is about for anything the yeah he heard eat your way out and that's exactly what he did and he's poor mother used to bring down food to supplement all the and anything that we hated in the room and I don't want this Allison I love it I love it and the thing that famouse change your life was that you listen to the radio there they had the radio the radio room and it's broadcast for an hour a day all around the Sun atoll and things like competitions quizzes recording quest medical requests then loaded records of important either friends of the sanatorium and you and the girls in the you know in the female block within the boys were send messages to each other you know they used to meet once a week at the film show on that and there so you know courting went on and you know is a message for Jane and it's for Martha looking forward to seeing you and it's flattened out was it you know this so I was the little mini you know that forces favorites type thing and Ray and I were put we came onto the radio committee 18 year old you know young kid represent the young people and what he said one day it's interesting what we're doing we were doing seat in the circle we were doing commentating on tennis matches between the doctors and the nurses pretending we were proven there BBC right I said one thing we don't do is Dharma or comedy shows and the bloke then you do it we said all right then we will so we came out with an idea that we would do six quarterman our comedy shows called have you ever wondered and the idea was that they said have you ever wondered what would happen if doctors became patients and patients became doctors do and then we write 15-minute sketch and we dried up after four we wrote for and couldn't think of any more so the series was shortened to four we got our first fan letter from in the Milford bulletin which I'll still have but it's the air B&B sanatorium newsletters yes a newsletter we stayed on the radio committee and we came up in the end we finished that with about two hours broadcasting don't mini BBC they kept us occupied it's better than embroidering a tablecloth which what I've been doing out out to them he'd been making hand dies because he could sell him he could get money to be in the handbags I think we were raided by Customs and Excise okay you've been making jewellery down here and TBI that you don't silly different to shillings and yeah money hey hey that's like mad and the way the way you've read those first four was that pretty much how it wouldn't be later on written scripts and we had a sound effects man and we had a sound engineer I think there's a photograph exists choking in the actual value room which was a blanket cupboard I mean literally it was a bit about six foot by two foot no but it's very good very good equipment yeah anyway that sound the writing starts have a go and did you when you were doing those four did you think this is something we could do no well I told you we must have we must have had the hope of it because we wrote a letter to Frank neo and Denis Norden who were out here I was writing taken from here and you know they were the biggest names in the you know and the best they were wonderful we've got this letter saying yes to them saying how much we love the show and and when we've come out of the sanatorium could we get a job in their office could we become their tea boys we wouldn't yeah we wouldn't be a nuisance since we could get some idea of learning and they wrote back a charming letter which basically was given us the elbow but in the most charming white and I said factors for the and they would hope that we would do extremely well and the best advice we can give you is to write send anything you've written to Gail Petric the script errors were the BBC who we know is avid for new writers nothing to look at we're had look that word up for a start me and Dennis Nolan and we wrote a script which was based on the last sketch of taken from here but it used to be a pastiche or something with a film or a play or something young and we sent it in and we got a letter from Gail pair to it which we still got that said please do not read more into this and appears on the surface but we were high read your spirit and we were highly amused by it would you bring my secretary and make an important to see if we can do something for you and I got the letter was sent to my house and I on the bus and God went over to race house in ran down the ran down new house walk wave in this sheet of paper like Chamberlain arriving back from Munich probably the first time we've seen him running whoa I see doubts when but the whole place and it was written British Broadcasting Corporation showed it's all our friends if nothing had ever happened we always got this letter - you know just say that we weren't we weren't you know we weren't a waste of time BBC television presents a lot of the people over Tony Hancock's very good example but there's also Frankie Howard Spike Milligan they encourage this thing that a lot of people want to believe the comedian's are deeply deeply unhappy underneath because Hancock gives that impression I mean easy is that inevitable I don't know if it's inevitable but I don't think it was true but one of the reasons that people think of Hancock is being depressed is that that character which was complicated wasn't it because the character you created for him which clearly drew from him was depressive him and there's that famed the famous episode of the Sunday afternoon yeah and many others everyone in England was repressed on the Sunday afternoon and he did it so well you see what he is that we work with our nine years when that didn't have any problems at all with depression I I say I mean he was tricky wasn't he was very nervous man you know he was he was very nervously the only thing he could do it was even he was brilliant at what he did where he was raised he had stage fright before he ever went a Radian it did no problem because he was just reading the script big problem was learning lines and when we used to do a television show for half-hour before he went on he would be you know retching there will be nerves you know until he started until he got the first laugh and then he was fine but as soon as the show was finished it was you know a drink yeah and the longest one more to real severe to rely on that on the Buddhist that was the problem the longest walk in the world for Tony was coming walking out from the wings to the microphone because that was him that was him then soon as he got to the microphone he'd be a character or whatever in it and that and that then he was fine but also it famously you can see in some of those later episodes because the eye lines are too quite right he was he was relying on an auto key line one for the last two the last two shows that we ever did with him was the blood donor and that's where start and and that it was on the blood donor that he first read the script motorcar and he was involved in a car accident during the previous week and he lost two days of rehearsal I had a slight concussion and Duncan Ward who was the director said well we've got to treat either we postpone the show or we put up the the the auto pews for him to read so I've decided that he should have the altitudes and that's it he he never as far as I know he never learned another word you did everything he's rationalizing was all the Americans did it but I've never learned a line you know Jack Brennan everywhere along I will used to read so if I could do it either do it the point is that the Hancock character is universal really isn't it I mean you got me you got miserable souls everywhere in the world and not just this country now you want to get rid of them 82 right drag on you force to fill you in in a minute many me all right sir nobody replied to that never mind about him when I see you tomorrow night then well I'll leave you by yourself ditch him and we'll all go out together okay come on he'll carry a welding equipment known for you where do you work the store around all right all shown up there money in a bank Sidney I'm not gonna stand here be insulted by rubbish like that I have my pride you know it's just about all you have good sending happens every Saturday night you're always having to spoil it for me we find a couple of Germans like a bomb when you get up there knows what do you say to them my course in habits and no concern of yours when everyone's my night out I'm telling you mate I'm thinking dead seriously gone out of my talk in future and he had a cruel streak didn't because he drops it James that's funny really because they're hidden Tony were intercept report there you know after a show finished with their two wife's they all go out together it was a big blow to us it'd be no good not just professionally because I don't think he wouldn't need it professionally because he had become but siddaway said I don't want I don't hanker job or anybody else that is it I don't to be a top and on a second banana suit me fine I don't I have always worried it's all that another but at the same time you know he did love being in a show and he loved Tony and he didn't understand him he didn't understand his Russian reasoning which we agree with but it makes sense it makes sense I says the fact is that they were becoming to be at Laurel and Hardy yeah more calm and wise overcoming a double act which they won't surrender Carrillo used to make ten films a year outside of handcuffs I felt it was never you never stop working Tony only had the this show and it was becoming a bit of a double act and he didn't see that his future was a double axe and so he thought he's got to he's gonna you know stop he's got he's got to change now they've been various books and programs now made about Hancock and a lot of attention comes down to what caused the break-up and what what in your view did cause it well know what cause actually abet they called a meeting to with us and Beryl virtue curator was our agent she started off as I see it became a very big agent and she still is and producing now and we we met up at that place by Regents part at the White House and he laid out his future plans to us he was it's gonna make this film that here he's going to do it was Philip hopes he was gonna set up a film company would eat gold and he's going to take his brother Roger with him means that he Roger was a part of our organization you're gonna take him away and so and he said barrel you know you didn't want barrel to be his agent Hema so barrels in tears and everything else and that was really the end of it yes so with our paths never crossed again or really so at the end of that but it was his doing if we had really stuck together on getting the film subject and getting it right it could be done it could have been done it it wasn't he was he he knew what he was gonna do yeah we couldn't wait any longer anyway because we've had some money you went on retainers in those days of London yes and yet to go so we the agreement was would come what may we would go and would write some television while he worked on these idea for a film and maybe we'd get back mate never happened I mean to me I mean it was a it's like a kick in the face I mean you we've been writing exclusively for him really for nine ten years and to do that I just thought well that's it you know when when you came out of that meeting what did you say to each other I don't I really don't remember but but he knew that was the end but well I did yeah I did I mean you go baby that's your uh your chosen paths you do it the irony was that to the second series of steps are the first night the second Sara stepped out coincided with the first night of Tony's new series on itv1 went out from 8:00 to 8:30 in the other one out late 32 nine and in the papers is all or what you know it's a fencing clear and as it happened I mean step so it was were you shocked when he died not surprised no no I mean I expected every day every day I picked paper up I expect to see you know they had topped himself I really did because he paid proud man and because he was in such a bad state by then I mean he didn't he didn't manifest anything like this until we all split and then then I can understand him being miserable because uh you know there he is top of the tree and suddenly isn't nothing's working he shows weren't working and he was taking more or less he was getting more desperate and he shows up get worse the maureen drank after Hancock's half hour with Tony Hong Kong you have incredible number of ideas at that time because that was one of ten comedies that year we had to earn some money so we went to the BBC and Tom Sloane who was the head of light entertainment I said what do you want to do so Ryan I'd always wanted to do a series with Frank you heard good work with Frank was it fact I'm a serious we've done a couple of radio series with him you know in the early fifties and he was Tim Ilana he said no no he's finished this was 1962 salesman no he's he's last serious didn't didn't get any figures he said what I want you to do he said I got this subject this is the most remarkable thing ever I've got a title comedy Playhouse he said it's my title he said but I want you to do ten weeks right ten weeks you can do what you like I don't care you can do a sketch show you can do story lines you can you can be in it you can direct it just give me ten half hours called comedy players do remarkable from from a guy that we thought was you know very very correct and an army and not reinsure me to come out with a stroke like this was unbelievable but we had to say yes we had to say yes and also appeal to us that we could see using actors now we started using actors with Hancock Morton straight actors you know people like COD in golden and and John Lowe Missouri I really was a straight actor and we became part of the set up but the idea of using cut you know straight out to the plate was it appeal to his very much partner that they wouldn't be counting their lines like the average comic doesn't anyway we got to number four couldn't think of a subject for number four and one yeah we had this little going back to my childhood the other something good that we used to do if we couldn't think of anybody come up with outlandish suggestions you know point here to rat catchers in Buckingham Palace you know just to make ourselves yeah right one it's a toboggan Bowman yeah and I thought he was coming up with one of his jokes and and didn't one of the silences I'd say for three days you didn't say anything three hours I didn't say anything and then I suddenly thought myself that's going it's a very bizarre background - I said what about those two rag-and-bone man and they said was yeah he was serious yeah I found out years later it wasn't a joke it meant it yeah and so we said but we still had no idea of who they were what they were what the story was going to be but we were getting to a deadline we had to start rising this they were father and son at that stage we got rain and it wasn't going anywhere it was quite yeah we enjoyable right in and yeah and I said well you know - I said what we're gonna do I said we can't go on write another ten pages are just inconsequential chitchat yeah we got so we went back over it and it was obvious that one was older than the other one came out of the and the other you know he was a bit my name really could he stayed at home all day while the other one went out so we thought like one's older ones younger what are they brothers cousins yeah business partner and then the idea came up the father and son and that was the catalyst fam was 37 years old and was still at home with his father and we suddenly saw this this was a relationship you know and we finished the play with him deciding he's gonna go and he couldn't go because the old man wouldn't let him at the halls and it worked beautifully and yeah and then during the writing of it Duncan was - do you want to play the parts and we we said well there are two actors that we'd never met but we admired their work how eh Corbett Wilfred bramble Harry was appearing at Bristol Old Vic he was doing and read forth I think and it was a script was sent to him and he read it and he persuaded him to let him have a week off and which they gave and it so there he is he was a king one week and a rag and bone man the next another thing about step down son which could have changed your lives quite dramatically is that you never wanted it to be a series at first no not at all but we see that the thing that the thing is why we were writing it we knew it was a serious you know what when we finished it we knew it was a serious but we didn't want to do it I mean ten years of Hancock no happiness this is for this is fine suit us down to the ground having a in a company Playhouse and on the first day rehearsal Tom stone was down there and looking and smiling nod nod not you know what you don't hear don't you come on come on whoa whoa it's a serious it's a serious oh no Tom no no no no that's one and he appeared every day every day and he took us out to lunch and he did this and he did that and we came all the all the objections we could think of a manufacture of stupid ones as well and in the end about six months have gone by and India and we said look if a Harry Cobra and Wilfred band will want to do it we do it thinking to laddie actors actor ladies and they would want to do this for a living and we couldn't have been more wrong if we try it it's put to them and they jumped at it yeah it jumped at it years later we found found out that when they were employed to do the the first one the offer they were employed under drama rights as straight actors and I think they've got paid ninety pounds each or 90 guineas each for that show when it becomes for to do a series it becomes a light entertainment show and the money and light entertainment is much more for actors than it is for drama that's how they were offered about you know considerably more money and of course they left out it never had so much loft so much money in their lives that's why they did it well that's what you do that's why wait so the point now now they said yes we our escape route was cut off and I mean it was immediately that was the beauty of it we did a six-week series they repeated the first one and then they did sickness over six new ones and ray and I went off on holiday ride taking a villa in Spain we were going out there to work on a film film script and I picked up the Daily Mail in in you know in manual sewer mere write on the board of France and it said about this new series steps aren't Sun sweep in the country you know halfway through the series how he came out to join us and said it's inquiry said his ridiculously so I can't move anywhere he said the showed the BBC did that they'd never done before well they repeated it immediately they followed the on site around for twelve weeks at the end of the twelve weeks it was an enormous success so because now we had no no excuse not doing their second series and we did four series altogether now then we had a four year break then we came back for another four so we did a series altogether and it was such a hit that I think isn't it true that Harold Wilson wanted transmission time change but he thought he would stop people voting yeah it was in the 64 election that was he said that you know these Labour Party traditional support is in the evening and this show is going at 8:30 well they won't come out was that before or after we invited us to dinner anyway apparently the BBC refused to change it anyway then they still got in so couldn't oh yeah I suppose with both stepped own son and Hancock you were lucky with the look of the actors and things you could do visually by Vivian in Steptoe the scene where he takes a bath Wilfred bramble oh yeah I mean mind you we were already fired that he was that skinny to be come straight out of the sanatorium [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Applause] ever meet Jenny are you doing audience ohh the other interesting thing well people have commented on now suppose there must be reason to the bit because Ray and I wrote both description whether it's ourselves really that stepped-on sung you know were in a way an extension of city of Bangkok I said James albeit you could get more you could get into a deeper country that he would lead with this depth I than you could with Hancock but it was a Nixon you know extension the attitudes between each other you know the the you know the the squaddies on intellectual as opposed to the thicker do you know Sid sitting the old man will you know I had no heirs and crisis and both Arianna Hancock worth living in but I think most of the great television comedy in Britain has been about class hasn't it and failure I mean yes it's right there right up to the office isn't they class and failure but you don't be funny about success I don't think here's what yeah what's an American American sitcoms and ours is they're all good-looking very rich very wealthy you know successful and now's the old lie about soared dodgy dealers doesn't die hopeless dreamers del boy Basil Fawlty all of them absolutely and and then the mind oh you know they're all you know a little bit seedy little bit it's a little bit that you know that but you know I'm saying to somebody the other day say every day really bad holidays you you will remember for the rest of your life and in recounting them you would tell people and you start laughing but you can't even gross anybody in I had a wonderful holiday last you did you gonna be dead in about them minute wouldn't they but disaster disaster is family and failure is funny but also you see I mean to a certain extent I've always written about ourselves in a way I mean what we're writing is no I'm not suggesting it yeah we're putting ourselves into the current so all these miserable old sods yeah discovered it now it's a lot of laughs in misery it's you wrote on into the mid-70s but then you decided to retire yeah yeah what was it a midlife crisis yes and well you know there's a bit of the algorithm yeah and I suppose the amygdala is a midlife yeah I had the problems with I didn't mean to retire I meant to take a year off or something I just and then sort come back so but you know that's fatal it's a bit like athletes once you stop you can't take a year off and then come back you've got to keep going because I found I couldn't concentrate and the one thing you should be able to do when you're writing is concentrating could have cast everything out of your mind and I couldn't you know for 10 minutes not good answer do you regret stopping I I regret having written I used to enjoy having written but I don't the act of writing they were never really too hard really is hard but having written I still love it I said couldn't wait to go to rehearsal couldn't wait to sit in the rehearsals but the idea of actually writing it that's in some respects I regret it yeah of them ray did you feel shocked or betrayed when he decided to retire I could see it coming I could see it coming but it's not something I hoped for or wanted and I think in in Sweden one night we were there good place to be miserable isn't it we stayed up all night drinking and in the hotel room and I was trying to persuade him not to not the gas turn it in and didn't work but yeah it was it was wrong but I thought well you know he's got to do what he's got to do it and man's gonna do is go do it so when you say that you could see it coming you knew I knew he wasn't very happy there have any banner year tour yeah I arrived it problems being private life that sir I know brothers my marriage at the time was but I think he was just that if anything it was just that because you know you could get over those sort of things and you do and you did yeah but anyway IIIi didn't want it to happen then I tried I tried to persuade him whatever was wrong not to worry about it we carry on and it'll all come right in the end but that was it and then in the 30 years since you you must at times have said let's get back together no discuss it well we do get back together occasionally I see ray every week yeah I've been sometimes more than once a week he lived a couple of minutes from me most people get irritated by getting older and so on but I was thinking looking back to the sanatorium it's it's actually it's amazing that you're here I know I keep I resent every day that passes I really do I've seen nothing nothing good about ageing I see nothing good about old age at all it's just a waste of time and it's it's quite worrying really but there yeah everybody has to put up with it unless you're lucky enough to die earlier but some people say good-looking corpse no this it's it's nothing to nothing to hang but we do hang on to it and you try and enjoy it at the same time better than the alternate and one of the things that famously happens to people as they get older particularly comedians comic writers is they say all that new young lost there they're no they're not funny when I watch them on the television do you suffer from that I read for the broth instead no I know I think I think they were good I don't believe in golden ages you know there's not as good as it used to be they were couldn't they were couldn't bad in every every year era and a lot of a lot of rotten rubbish was being pumped out when you know 30 40 years ago but nobody remembers it and I found some wonderful young comedians out there I think Peter Kay's is brilliant I like everything he does yeah and he's a young man and not as young as we were when we started but he's only 13 isn't 32 or whatever what about the office yeah I like that yeah I'm glad I'm glad they unclad they stopped on um series 2 I mean it was there was definitely that was there definitely the end of it yes that's brilliant you know for the first well second series as well brilliantly done brilliantly done and finally if we played Desert Island Discs or DVDs if there was one you could take with you it would be the Blood Donor wouldn't it that that Robert prefer a compilation I would like bits of the blood donor I would love the I'd likely seen that the please of the jury and they had theirs magna carta mean nothing to you did she die in vain that speech some bits of Steptoe law a half hour compilation and rather than with the one complete show yeah I think I think so I bet that you know surprised that the lack of egotism in in people who go on that show it has happened once twice where they do pick all their records and everything else like that but most of them don't must have had the good taste not too big but I don't think comedy well you cannot tell a joke twice you can't tell a joke twice and I and if you it's not quite the same but it's a CS show more than a couple of times I think I would drive you up the wall especially comedy I think I think that's where the drama has got the edge I think I think you can get in the mood and watch it again and watch it again I see something else in it or something whether I don't think you would try and find something else in the comedy show you take it as it it presents itself to you and and I think you get what I would get terribly bored I'd kill it I threatened to see and and can I take it can I take an episode of Reb see Nesbitt with me you can yet thank you rate wolterman alan simpson thank you thank you thanks for having us next week mark Lawson meets George Cole next tonight stay tuned for a look behind the scenes of Ray and Allen's creation the curse of Steptoe is next more info in just a second [Music]

Channel: ppotter

Views: 16,440

Rating: 4.8717947 out of 5

Keywords: galton and simpson, tony hancock, hancock's half hour, interview, mark lawson, 2008, comedy, steptop and son, ray galton, alan simpson

Id: 10_V3PP95aE

Length: 56min 41sec (3401 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 06 2017