This month marks 50 years since the first episode of Steptoe and Sonaired - and we may have the star of legendary writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson's previous hit to thank for its existence.
If Tony Hancock had agreed to make Galton and Simpson's film The Day Off, which receives its world premiere performance at the Loco London Comedy Film Festival at the BFI this weekend, Steptoe and Son might never have been written - and the framework for modern sitcom may never have been laid.
Having written Hancock's debut film, The Rebel, the pair were disappointed when he rejected their second film, perhaps hoping for something more 'international'; circumstances saw to it that the trio were never to work together again.
The script then then sat in a filing cabinet in Ray's basement for the next 50 years, until an archivist unearthed it and biographer Christopher Stevens brought it to light in his biography of the pair, The Masters of Sitcom.
A cast of comedy actors including Morwenna Banks and Kevin Eldon are set to read the script, which has had a narrative written especially for the unique performance. It's something the pair, now in their early '80s, are as eager to witness as their legion of fans: "We've not heard it performed before," Alan Simpson tells me at Ray Galton's home in Hampton, southwest London, where the friends and writing partners of more than 60 years meet every Monday to chat over coffee.
After half a century locked away, The Day Off is experiencing a real day in the sun: not only will it receive a special performance, but it has also been optioned to become film. "It would be wonderful if it turned into a big hit," says Ray, although they're quick to add that it will be difficult for anyone to follow in their friend's footsteps. "There's no way you're going to find another Tony Hancock," Alan pronounces, as Ray adds: "And we wouldn't want that either."
After Hancock's rejection of the script, the pair were enticed back to writing for the BBC in 1961 by Tom Sloan, then Head of Light Entertainment, who gave them carte blanche to write whatever they liked for a new series of short comic plays. "Tom asked us in to see what we'd like to do," explains Ray. "We wanted to write for Frankie Howerd, but he said 'No, Frank's finished'. He'd thought of the title 'The Comedy Playhouse' and said 'write what you like, cast who you like, be in it yourselves, if you like'. We couldn't believe it - we thought he'd gone crazy. Nobody's been given a deal like that before and they never will be again."
Episode four of The Comedy Playhouse was The Offer, which produced its own remarkable offer - recognising its potential, Tom Sloan urged the pair to make a series of it, which was to become Steptoe and Son. But Galton and Simpson were initially reluctant to return to writing a series: "After nine or 10 years of Hancock, to get an offer like that was incredible. But we wanted to keep doing something different, so we said no for six months. We thought we'd shut him up by saying we'd do it only if both Wilfrid [Brambell] and Harry [H Corbett] would do it, sure that they wouldn't. But they jumped at it," self-deprecatingly adding: "they got paid better rates for the series as it was classed as Light Entertainment, which paid a lot more than Drama rates."
The show was an instant success. Such was the response to Steptoe and Son, the BBC immediately repeated the series straight after the six episodes were aired, which no programme had ever experienced.
In both Hancock's Half Hour and Steptoe and Son, a new type of comedy was created, one that wasn't based on variety, had no gags, and no 'silly voices'; just realistic characters in a realistic situation - they put the 'sit' in sitcom. But they reject the idea that they invented the sitcom. "We didn't invent it", Ray is quick to say, citing American shows as their inspiration. "If people want to call us the 'fathers' or 'masters of sitcom', that's lovely," continues Alan, "... although we can get away with it because we're old enough."
The Day Off will be performed at the BFI on Sunday 29 January as part of the LoCo London Comedy Film Festival.