Tuesday 7 June 2022 05:13 PM How Steptoe and Son nearly lost Labour the 1964 election... as show turns 60 ... trends now

It was the show that became so popular it nearly cost Labour the 1964 election.

At its peak, Steptoe and Son - which depicted one of the most tragic but hilarious double acts in TV history - commanded an audience of 28 million viewers.

Although the first episode of the show's eight series aired on this day 60 years ago, its characters originally appeared on the BBC series Comedy Playhouse in January 1962.

Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett - cast as a father and son who scraped a living picking out things of value from rubbish that people had thrown out - were loved by viewers so much that Steptoe quickly became a show in its own right.

Over the course of 57 episodes, the pair changed the course of TV and comedy history, laying down the rules for popular sitcoms that followed.

The influence of the show was visible in the likes of Dad's Army, Fawlty Towers and even UK version of The Office, although Brambell and Corbett fell out in later life.

Such was its popularity in the 1960s that Labour's Harold Wilson lobbied the BBC to change the time that it aired on the night of the 1964 election, because he feared working class voters may stay at home to watch the show instead of voting for his party's candidates.

The BBC's director general Sir Hugh Greene agreed to shift the time that the episode aired to after the polls had closed, and Labour won the election with a majority of just four seats.

It was the show that became so popular it nearly cost Labour the 1964 election. At its peak, Steptoe and Son - which depicted one of the most tragic but hilarious double acts in TV history - commanded an audience of 28 million viewers

At its peak, Steptoe and Son - which depicted one of the most tragic but hilarious double acts in TV history - commanded an audience of 28 million viewers

Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett - cast as a father and son who scraped a living picking out things of value from the rubbish people threw out - were loved by viewers so much that Steptoe quickly became a show in its own right

Steptoe and Son was written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, who had spent their teens in a sanatorium recovering from tuberculosis.

Albert Steptoe and Harold made their first appearance in January 1962 on Comedy Playhouse, which also gave birth to shows including Last Of The Summer Wine, The Liver Birds and Are You Being Served.

Memorable lines from Steptoe and Son

Son Harold to Albert: 'You dirty old man!'

Harold to Albert: 'You are a dyed-in-the-wool, fascist, reactionary, squalid little, "know your place", "don't rise above yourself", "don't get out of your hole" - complacent little turd. You are morally, spiritually and physically a festering fly-blown heap of accumulated filth.'

Albert to Harold: 'What do you want for your tea?'

Harold: 'When I've got my decent clobber on I'm completely classless. Providing I don't open my mouth I could pass for anybody.'

Harold: 'Ain't it pathetic, your faith in the healing powers of a cup of tea! [...] the Englishman's panacea! Mother just died? Oh what a shame, have a cup of tea. Just been run over? Never mind, have a cup of tea. I have been offered tea for disasters, funerals, operations, floods, wars, Dunkirk, the Blitz, coronations, piles, hysteria, hunger marches and insomnia. Nice cup of tea in one hand and thumbs up to the camera in the other... Britain can take it! Well they can have it.'

Harold to Albert: 'That wasn't a lobster that poisoned you, you swallowed your own venom.'

Proving to be enormously popular, the BBC quickly commissioned a series.

Unlike the comedy that had come before, there were no stand-up jokes, punchlines or sketches. Steptoe just depicted believable characters, with the comedy in the situation itself - no matter how achingly tragic the Harold and Albert's story was.

The father and son lived in a cluttered junkyard on the fictional Oil Drum Lane in Shepherd's Bush.

Harold longed to escape his surroundings and his drunken father's influence, but his attempts were always frustrated by the older man.

The setting was the early 1960s, when the rag-and-bone man had no future in a world defined by burgeoning