Ray Galton and Alan Simpson ― The Masters of Sitcom from Hancock to Steptoe

Ray Galton and Alan Simpson are two of the most influential and celebrated television scriptwriters of our time. Praised for inventing the sitcom, their own seminal creations are still standing the test of time with modern audiences—Hancock's Half Hour and Steptoe and Son are two of the most successful sitcoms ever made. This book is a charming tribute to their career in comedy, written in collaboration with Galton and Simpson themselves and with exclusive access to their personal archive of scripts. Readers will discover the fascinating story of their progress from variety shows to television, and how they came to create characters and programs that have captured the nation's heart for generations. Their insightful comments on their own writing, along with their first-class understanding of the television writers' craft, make this anthology unique, informative, and incredibly entertaining.

Christopher Stevens has been a sub-editor and reporter at the Observer for ten years and has ghostwritten several celebrity autobiographies. He co-authored A Real Boy, about his son's life with autism, with his wife Nicola. Christopher's biography of Kenneth Williams, Born Brilliant, was a critically acclaimed BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week.