Live At The Hollywood Bowl was the film of a concert show filmed at The Hollywood Bowl.  Originally the Pythons had planned on releasing a film consisting of two shows they had performed in Germany edited together, this proved impractical although The Hollywood Bowl show did contain some filmed inserts, most of which were from the two German shows.  The live stage performances all came from The Hollywood Bowl.

All six Monty Python members, participated in the film with Carol Cleveland in numerous supporting roles and Neil Innes performing songs.  Also present for the shows and participating as an ‘extra’ was Python superfan Kim ‘Howard’ Johnson.

Although Live At The Hollywood Bowl mostly contained sketches from the TV show, the scripts and performers were not identical to those seen on television. The lineup also included some sketches that predated Monty Python’s Flying Circus, including the “Four Yorkshiremen sketch”, which dated from 1967′s At Last the 1948 Show.

In terms of timescale, Live At The Hollywood Bowl was performed in September 1980 and recorded to videotape, before being transferred to film.  The inserts from the German shows were recorded in 1972.  The finished item was released in 1982.

Summary

The Monty Python team perform many of their best sketches and songs at the Hollywood Bowl.

Clips

Performed By

Graham Chapman
John Cleese
Terry Gilliam
Eric Idle
Terry Jones
Michael Palin
Carol Cleveland
Neil Innes

Details

Written By:

Graham Chapman
John Cleese
Terry Gilliam
Eric Idle
Terry Jones
Michael Palin

With Additional Material By:

Tim Brooke-Taylor
Marty Feldman
Angus James
David Lipscomb

Produced By: Terry Hughes
Original Release Date: 25th June 1982

Merchandising

The Pythons are back ! Well, sort of.  Spamalot is the award winning musical comedy, adapted (‘lovingly ripped off from”) the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, by former Python Eric Idle.

Previewing in Chicago USA in 2004, the show has toured all over the world, indeed, during its initial run of over 1,500 performances it was seen by more than two million people and grossed over $175 million.

The show can still be seen in the UK today playing London’s West End.

Summary

Whilst like the film, it is a highly irreverent parody of the Arthurian Legend, there are some subtle differences from the film, in that it is a musical comedy.

Clips

Cast

Too many to list as the show has traveled all over the world and been running since 2005.  British performers have included Jodie Prenger and Sanjeev Bhaskar.

Details

Music:
John Du Prez
Eric Idle
Neil Innes

Lyrics: Eric idle
Book: Eric Idle
First Performance:
Previewed at Chicago’s Shubert Theatre (now the Bank of America Theatre) on 21st December 2004

Merchandising

Steptoe and Son in Murder at Oil Drum Lane brought the Steptoe story to a close. It was first performed in 2005.

Summary

The year is 2005. Steptoe’s old house  now belongs to the National Trust. Harold Steptoe, now in his 70s, visits the place but gets shut in after closing time. Through his monologue, the audience discovers that he eventually killed his father by throwing a spear at him when he was sitting on the toilet. Since then, he has been living on the run in Rio De Janeiro.

Locked in Harold begins to look around the old place, at this point the ghost of his father, Albert, re-appears. Albert explains that he has been trapped in this house with the “poncy” National Trust man, and that the only thing that Albert needs to get into heaven is an apology from Harold. But Harold refuses to give it, because he blames Albert for ruining his life.

Most of the story is told in flashback. Albert refused to let him go to school, forcing him into a life of no education. Albert forced Harold to take the blame for looting in the blitz. Albert then stopped him going to theD-Day landings. Albert had locked him in a secret compartment throughout the war. When the war ends, Harold is arrested and sent to fight in the Malayas. When he returns, Albert continues to ruin his life. In an attempt to be rid of Albert forever, Harold plans to emigrate to New Zealand with his fiancée, Joyce. Albert ruins it by telling them that Joyce is secretly Harold’s sister. Harold sets off for New Zealand but in true Steptoe style is thwarted when Albert gets him arrested by framing him as a thief. When Harold gets out of jail, Albert continues to thwart all his attempts to get a girlfriend. Harold is absolutely mad at Albert until he discovers that in all the junk he has a copy of Johannes Gutenberg’s Bible worth £3 million. Harold is delighted and runs off to celebrate. Albert is not so happy, realising that his simple life with Harold will be over.
In the next scene, Harold returns home to find the Bible missing, and presumes his father has destroyed it. In a fit of rage he throws a spear at the toilet door. At that moment, Albert opens the door and is stabbed by the spear.
The flashbacks end. Harold finds it in his heart to forgive Albert. It is then that he has a heart attack (due to finding the Bible was hidden for safe measures not destroyed, yet over time it had been chewed and ripped) and becomes a ghost along with Albert. The next morning, his body is discovered and Joyce, who has become a nun asks for him to be buried next to his father, much to Harold’s annoyance. Albert accidentally tells Harold that Joyce and he aren’t really related. Harold is furious and in the argument they fly into the sky on their old wagon, pulled by their old horse Hercules, arguing over which one will go to Heaven.

Cast

Harold - Jake Nightingale
Albert - Harry Dickman
National Trust Man, Policeman #1, Military Policeman - Daniel Beales
Joyce, Pamela - Katie Males
Fiona - Louise Metcalfe
Policeman #2 - Andy Clarkson

Clips

Details

Written By: Ray Galton and John Antrbus

Dad’s Army is a national institution, enjoying regular repeats on the BBC.  It’s as popular today as it’s always been.

Just as we saw with Hi-De-Hi, a stage show was nothing new, in fact we’ve covered the original touring production you’ll find it in the archive under On Parade With The Dads Army Stage Show.

Some thirty years after the series had ended and with most of the original cast having passed on, a new stage production courtesy of Calibre Stage Productions, with a new cast took to the stage in 2008 to celebrate the show’s 40th anniversary.

Such was the success of the show that Croft and Perry were persuaded to release four more scripts that became the 2010 production Dads Army Marches On.  Unfortunately we have been unable to find out which ones, but if anybody knows let us know.

Summary

The Lost Episodes

An adaptation of the classic episode ‘The Deadly Attachment’ in which the platoon have to guard a German U-Boat crew with hilarious results.  in addition there were adaptations of two lost episodes not seen since 1969.  “A Stripe For Frazer” reveals the competition between Frazer and Jones when Mainwaring offers a promotion to the rank of Corporal for one of his lucky soldiers, while “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker” catalogues Pte. Walker’s desperate attempt to avoid the draft – madcap mayhem ensues.

Clips

http://youtu.be/-k24GNGF4NA

Cast

Leslie Grantham
Timothy Kightley
David Warwick
Richard Tate
Kern Falconer
Brian Jackson
Tom Richardson

Today we thought as we look forward to a revived series of Yes Prime Minister, we’d turn the clock back to 2010 and the stage play that followed the pattern of the original TV series.

In early 2010 an announcement was made that the writers of Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister were to collaborate  once more on the subject of their classic TV comedy Yes Minister, this time the production would take the form of a stage play.

A new cast took to the stage at  the  Chichester Festival Theatre, on 13th May 2010.  After a brief respite the show was revived at the Gielgud Theatre, in London’s West End from 17th September 2010 until 15th January 2011.  As well as the characters we knew and loved there was the introduction of a new one in the form of Claire Sutton, who became Hacker’s special policy advisor.

After it’s West End success the play began a tour of the United Kingdom in February 2011, with a revised cast Simon Williams as Sir Humphrey Appleby, Richard McCabe as Jim Hacker and Charlotte Lucas as Claire Sutton.

It returned to the West End in July 2011 for a 10-week run at the Apollo Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue, with Williams and McCabe reprising their roles.

The play then went back on a tour of the United Kingdom, before, like the TV series returning to the West End with a new script. Yes Prime Minister will be played at the Trafalgar Studios, in Whitehall, from 6 June 2012.

Summary

This production, while following the spirit and tone of the original series in many respects, made some subtle changes to the TV series.  It was set contemporaneously at Chequers, the Prime Minister’s country residence, as opposed to the corridors of West Minister, with BlackBerrys frequently in evidence (technology having moved on some since the original version) and even included a topical reference to a coalition agreement which Sir Humphrey had drafted (the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats having formed a coalition government in Britain in May 2010).

The plot was a little more provocative and risqué than most of those seen previously (including a debate about the ethics of procuring a fifteen-year-old as a sexual partner for a visiting dignitary, a proposition which Claire suggested might be spun in the national interest as a “euro-job”) and included some stronger expletives (reflecting perhaps their widely reported use among New Labour’s hierarchy between 1997 and 2010). There was also a higher element of traditional farce.

Clips

Cast

Jim Hacker – David Haig (Richard Mc Cabe in the touring version)
Sir Humphrey Appleby – Henry Goodman (Simon Williams in the touring version)
Bernard Wooley – Jonathan Slinger
Claire Sutton – Emily Joyce (Charlotte Lucas in the touring version)

Details

Written By: Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lynn
Original Theatre: Chichester Festival Theatre
Original Production Dates (non touring): 13th May to 5th June 2010

Taking the original post and adding some great new material, we hope Steptoe fans will enjoy this.

Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd’s Bush, London. Eight series were produced by the BBC in two blocks from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974, for this run it was broadcast in colour, somthing the writers were not sure aboutas it deflected from the bleakness and greys that fitted so well into the background.
Steptoe was so different to any sitcoms that had gone before or at the time, even today it stands away from the normal set up of a traditionsl sitcom.  Where as other comedies revolved around interfering mothers-in-law and the sudden failure of the hero’s braces the moment his boss appeared, Steptoe and Son was different in that it focussed on the relationship between a Father and Son who not only have to live together, but work together.
The comedy came from the the fact that the characters were complete opposites of each other Harold is the 40 year old son with aspirations of better things in life, without his Father, despite this he sees himself as working class and is a staunch supporter of the Labour Party.  At the other end of the scale we have Albert, the Father, set in his ways, not particular over hygene (an element that presents great comic effect in many episodes).  Albert sees himself as the Steptoe of Steptoe and Son (in actual fact The Steptoe and Son refers to his Father and him) and as such sees himself as management and as such he feels that he should lend his political support to the Conservative Party, again in complete contrast to Harold.  To rub salt into Harold’s wounds everything he tries the old man either pulls him back or is better at it than he is nowhere is this more evdident than the episode Loathe story.  First Albert beats Harold at badminton in the yard, then later in the story manages to thwarte his chances with an upmarket girlfriend, to whom he has become engaged and whose Mother is insistent on meeting Harold’s family.
During the early series the characters look very rougth to highlight their occupation, but by later series they have been tidied up.

As Harold puts it in Divided We Stand any ideas he has “ideas for the business, ideas for the ‘ouse, you’re against it” and so through 8 series and 57 episodes they argue sparking laughter off each other like flint off lead.

So How Did It Come About ?
Writers Ray Galton and Simpson had had great success writing for Tony Hancock, however in 1961 Hancock parted company from both the BBC and his writers.  Keen to keep the two writers, then head of BBC Comedy, Tom Sloan comissioned a series of six one off comedies under the banner “Galton and Simpson’s Comedy playhouse”.  After writing the first five and the realisation that they had cost more to produce than expected, the two writers found themselves with writer’s block.  The idea came to them to write a two hander set in one room, they considerd the idea of the two charaters being brothers, but decided that the idea of Father and Son worked best.  So was born the finished product “The Offer”.  Having just finished a successful seven year run with Hancock neither of the two writers were loking to write another series.
Tom Sloan had other ideas, he told the two writers during rehearsals that “The Offer” was a definite series pilot: he saw that the Steptoe idea had potential, as did the audience of that edition of Comedy Playhouse. Galton and Simpson were reportedly overwhelmed by this reaction, and later that year, the first of eight series was commissioned.

Casting
In a break with tradition the lead parts were played by two highly talented Shakesperian actors, in fact Harry H. Corbett was perceived as the English Marlon Brando in his early career.  Wilfrid Brambell was an Irish actor who despite his age had gained a reputation for playing old men, so successful was he that he hardly ever stopped working throughout his career.

Audience Reaction, Spin Offs And The Famous Curse ?
Steptoe and Son was a huge hit, at it’s peak it reguarly drew audiences of over 20 million.  It produced a Radio series and two feature films.  The series was sold to USA where it was renamed Sanford And Son with American actors playing the parts, this ran 1972 to 1977.

It is often reported that Steptoe bled the two actors careers dry, with them not being able to find work other than similar characters, it is also claimed that the two men never got along.  Both claims are without foundation, family members and Galton and Simpson have all said that there was no friction between the two men and if you look at their body of work there doesn’t seem to have been any problem finding other work.

After Steptoe And Son, Steptoe Down Under
The TV series ended in 1974, returning only once more later that year for the final Christmas special, the radio series ended 2 years later in 1976, but the two actors would be persuaded to reprise their roles once more.
Harry H Corbett’s  tour promoter Kevin O’Neill reminded him about the great time he had whilst touring the Australia in 1972.  Harry contacted Wilfrid Brambell to see if he was agreeable to  the idea of a ‘Steptoe and Son’ stage show,he agreed.  They eventually convinced Galton and Simpson to write it for them and the 1977 Theatre Production ‘Steptoe and Son Down Under’ became a reality.
The show opened in Australia in September 1977 and was directed by Harry H. Corbett.
Not unlike The Dad’s Army stage show it takes the form of a cabaret show which included jokes, sketches and songs as well as familiar lines from the show.  There is of course a back story Harold has emigrated to Australia to finally escape the clutches of his manipulative father, only to discover Albert has followed him there and nothing has changed!  Whilst in Australia they made 2 commercials for Ajax
There would be 3 tours of the show the first in Australia, then to New Zealand and then back home for just a handful of performances.

Final appearences
Steptoe and Son had given both actors financial security and allowed them to return to any kind of work that interested them.  They would however make a small number of appearences in character for various events.  The first was a short sketch “Scotch On The Rocks” as part of a a Radio 2 show “Good Luck Scotland”, celebrating  Scotland’s entry into the World Cup.  Their final appearence together was in a Kenco Coffee commercial in 1981, a year later Harry H Corbett would die from a heart attack.

http://youtu.be/lJq9h4sOByU

Bringing The Story To A Close
In 2005 Ray Galton teamed up with John Antrobus (Alan Simpson had retired) to bring Steptoe to an end.  The play Steptoe And Son Murder At Oil Drum Lane toured the country and told the story of how Harold finally came to murder his Father and himself ends up having a heart attack.
With both the original leasdactors now dead theirroles were played by Jake Nightingale as Harold and Harry Dickman as Albert

You can re-vist the TV series, Radio Series, Two Feature Films and Murder At Oil Drum Lane in our archives.

Extras

Following on from the success of the television series a stage show was commissioned by Bernard Delfont in the spring of 1975.
The original writers Jimmy Perry and David Croft adapted material from their original scripts so they could allow for the lack of location filming.
The show opened for business for a two week trial run at the Billingham Forum Theatre in September 1975.  Following minor cuts and revisions it opened in London’s West End at the Shaftsbury Theatre in October 1975, where it ran until February 1976.  In March 1976 it toured the country until September of that year.

Summary
The show was in the style of a revue, with songs, familiar scenes from the show, and individual turns for cast members.

Clips

Cast
Most of the principal Dad’s Army cast transferred with it, with the exception of John Jaurie who was replaced by Hamish Roughead. Following James Beck’s death two years earlier, Walker was played by John Bardon (of Eastenders fame). Clive Dunn was replaced for half the tour by Jack Haig (David Croft’s original first choice for the role of Corporal Jones on television). Jeffrey Holland who went on to star in several later Croft sitcoms, also had a number of roles in the production.

Details
Written By: Jimmy Perry and David Croft
Produced By: Roger Redfarn

Merchandising
An LP of the stage show entitled “Dad’s Army” was released in 1975 by Warner Brothers and surprisingly is still available on CD today.

Calibre Productions, the company behind the recent trend of bringing some of our best loved sitcoms back to the stage, present a well received stage adaptation of Porridge starring Shaun Williamson of Eastenders fame.

Summary

Written by the original team of Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais this stage production follows the same plot lines as the original TV version brilliantly adapted for stage.

Tour Dates

We came to this one a little too late, as it finished early 2010, but we’ll keep you advised if it goes again as they often do.

A full cast stage production of favourite 80′s sitcom HI-DE-HI is currently touring the country to great reviews.  Featuring some of the original cast members this show has been playing to packed houses all over the country.  Go to www.davidcroft.co.uk for full details and dates.