Steve Pratt discovers how a contemporary theatre company, Kneehigh, turned the classic TV sitcom Steptoe and Son into a show which the audience was least likely to expect

EMMA RICE is used to people giving her funny looks. Perhaps such a reaction is only to be expected when one of Britain’s most innovative theatre companies announces its next production is Steptoe And Son.

Yes, the iconic British TV comedy about Albert and his son Harold, two rag-andbone men living in a scrapyard on Oil Drum Lane. Scripted by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, the series was seen on the BBC from 1962-65 and again from 1970-74 with audiences of 28 million at the height of its popularity.

Several films, starring original cast members Wilfred Brambell and Harry H Corbett, followed. A few years ago a stage version premiered at York Theatre Royal before a London run.

The idea of giving Steptoe And Son – in its 50th anniversary year – the Kneehigh treatment has been floating around in Rice’s mind for a couple of years. It follows the company’s acclaimed version of Brief Encounter, which was also seen at West Yorkshire Playhouse and then staged in a cinema in London.

BEFORE she could mount a stage production, director and adaptor (and joint artistic director of Kneehigh) had to get the approval of the show’s writers Galton and Simpson, who include Hancock’s Half Hour among their other work.

“It’s interesting that people who love Steptoe and Son wouldn’t think of Kneehigh, and people who love Kneehigh wouldn’t put us with Steptoe and Son,” she says.

Rice sees the piece as a dark meaningful comedy about family. Harold and Albert live together, work together, their lives inextricably intertwined. Yet they apparently can’t stand the sight or sound of each other as their constant bickering demonstrates.

Rice’s production is adapted from the original scripts of four episodes – The Offer, A Bird, The Holiday and Two’s Company.

“I always knew we would understand it as a company because running a company for 30 years is like family. We recognise those feelings of entrapment and what people do to each other,” she says.

“But it’s a show about two blokes and I wasn’t about to let that happen. So wondered what would happen if there was a woman in that world. She’s transforming throughout the show in a way that they don’t transform.”Rice was slightly too young to be a fan of the original, remembering having to go to bed before the show came on the TV. She can recall hearing her dad laughing but reflects that the subject matter – the cruelty and possessiveness – can be quite disturbing.

“I did an adaptation. I went through the scripts and watched a lot of stuff. I didn’t watch it all because it became clear the earlier episodes were more fertile for me, like the great set piece where they divided the house. I was looking for the meatier humanity of it.”

There’s no such thing as “typical Kneehigh”.

She says: “We always let the work lead and are very clear with each other that having a formula is not an option because we would die a very swift death if we did.

People will recognise the Kneehigh DNA through the performers.”

She feels the term “modern opera” might describe the production to a certain extent.

“I wanted it to feel much more epic than a junkyard. There’s no point in replicating the TV series because it’s all there in the DVD box set. You can watch that.”

The cast has Mike Shepherd, Kneehigh’s founder and joint artistic director, as Albert (“I always wanted him to be Albert, I wouldn’t have done it without him”) and Dean Nolan, recently seen in Big Society alongside Phill Jupitus at Leeds City Varieties, as Harold. Kneehigh regular Kirsty Woodward plays The Woman. Music from the time, the 1960s and 1970s, features on the soundtrack.

It’s been challenging, says Rice, of rehearsals in Leeds before the show headlined at the Asylum in Cornwall this summer before returning to Yorkshire this month.

Galton and Simpson saw an early dress rehearsal and are planning to see the show again in Leeds.

How have audiences in Cornwall been receiving the show? “I think it’s far more moving than people expect and they are enjoying it, but not in the way they thought.

It’s funny and there’s a lot of laughter but also a lot of pathos,” she says.

  •  Steptoe and Son: West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, Sept 14-Oct 13. Box Office: 0113-213770 and wyp.org.uk