A pair of aces

William Cook talks to the creators of some of TV’s funniest and best-loved comedy programmes

As our economy disappears down the plughole, along with the reputations of most of our bankers and politicians, the one consolation is that entertainers like Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross suddenly seem terribly passé. When you’re broke, there’s nothing entertaining about other people’s affluence — or decadence — and, even if you can make ends meet, failure is always far funnier than success.

The two men who understand this better than anyone are sitting side by side on the same sofa, in the august but comfy drawing room of a grand old house near Hampton Court. This house belongs to Ray Galton, but Alan Simpson seems equally at home here — as well he might, since the two of them have been writing partners for over 50 years. And what a partnership! Between them they created two of the funniest (and most poignant) failures in the history of British television: Harold Steptoe and Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock. Many of the early Hancocks were broadcast live and vanished into the ether, while the BBC managed to mislay two series of Steptoe (copies were recently rediscovered in Ray’s cellar, but only in black and white).

‘The BBC saw no future for these recordings,’ says Ray. ‘They never thought they would ever sell them in shops.’ How times change, for Ray and Alan are here today to plug their latest DVD. It’s a re-issue of one of their Playhouse series, a string of one-act plays the like of which you never see on peaktime telly nowadays. Why not? Well, partly because modern telly is far too keen on chasing ratings to risk such a rich mix of one-off dramas (‘They’re not allowed to fail,’ says Alan), but mainly because duos like Galton & Simpson have become a dying breed.