A Comedy On This Day: Steptoe & Son - The Stepmother (17 January 1963)

 Earlier Steptoe stories do tend to concentrate on the essence of their situation more often - How can Harold ever break away and does he even, in his heart, want to? Albert becoming engaged causes the potential break in this one. It’s an enjoyable reversal of the usual situation to watch Albert with his fiancée, spruced-up and acting with greater reserves of gallantry and consideration than we're used to seeing.
 

 The balance of sympathy is fascinating, with Harold generally coming across as the more unreasonable party, waiting for Albert to return home like a nagging mother, incredulous that a 65-year old would want to get married, calling up the dimly-remembered (and rarely-mentioned) figure of Mother Steptoe as some kind of saint. But what is at stake for him is also significant - Albert and Emma plan to move to Cornwall, leaving him alone, homeless and having to start up again. And what are Emma's intentions? The swift way that this all gets resolved - in one scene with several reversals of the situation and each character's understanding of where they stand with each other - is implausible, but the quality of the writing makes it all psychologically true and engaging. And, as always, the father and son are back to the usual status quo by the end of the episode.

  A 1963 viewer could then immediately turn over to ITV to see what Galton & Simpson were missing out on in Hancock. Their old muse wasn't in a very good way, and his new writers had come up with a long routine for him (Hancock as a film actor endlessly cocking up his scene) that harked back to older, les sophisticated comic traditions. Its not a comedy of the same calibre, and is most interesting when Denholm Elliott turns up as a new wave film director.