What a peculiar rag-and-bone cart of a show this is. Kneehigh has taken four episodes of the legendary Galton and Simpson television comedy, which ran between 1962 and 1974, and used them as the basis for a woefully underpowered and remarkably mirth-free play. For fans of the original, it’ll disappoint. For the uninitiated, it’ll simply bewilder.
Mike Shepherd, as manipulative father Albert, does at least bear a passing resemblance to Wilfrid Brambell, who played Steptoe Sr in the TV series, but it seems perverse to cast someone as dissimilar to unlikely sex symbol Harry H. Corbett as Dean Nolan’s Harold. Rice has also chosen to “explore the presence, or lack of presence, of femininity in Albert and Harold’s lives” by having Kirsty Woodward waft, often in a state of undress, across stage. It’s a heavy-handed comment on the changing tastes in fashion, music and even sexual politics that evolved while Steptoe was on air. Woodward has one of the most thankless roles I’ve seen for months.
The episodes trundle on, Harold never leaves and I reflected with sadness that I laughed more in 10 minutes of looking at the originals on YouTube than in two hours here. I don’t wish to hear the word “bird” in a non-ornithological context for a long time.
Until April 6 (020 8741 6850, lyric.co.uk)
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