RAY Galton eventually let his curiosity get the better of him.

Steptoe & Son, his treasured comic creation with Alan Simpson, is to be revived this autumn not on television but on the stage of York Theatre Royal in the world premiere of Steptoe & Son In Murder At Oil Drum Lane.

Galton, tall and slim, white of beard and now 75, attended the launch of the Theatre Royal's autumn and winter season on Tuesday.

Back in the limelight to discuss his notoriously discontented characters, Galton sat by the apron of the stage, surrounded by a cluster of journalists eager for his thoughts on past, present and future.

Why revive Steptoe & Son, in a new collaboration with co-writer John Antrobus? "Well, I often wondered what these characters were doing now, now we'd stopped writing for them. Then I wondered how old they would be now, and then John Antrobus said, 'how do you feel about putting them on stage?', and initially I thought 'No'," Ray says.

"But then I thought, well, the only way I'd be interested in doing this and the only way it would work was if the old man was dead... and he's been killed by his son.

"Harold's always threatened to kill him, so it was the logical outcome, and so we've set the play today or tomorrow. Albert's death was an accident but Harold was found guilty, and on the way to Broadmoor, he escapes to spend the rest of his life abroad - cleaning out Ronnie Biggs's pool, as his father says later. He then comes back home to England, slightly because Max Clifford is interested in his story and might pay him something, but really it's to see the old place again, which is now in the hands of the National Trust."

Once returned to the quiet streets of Oil Drum Lane and the totters' yard home of their decrepit rag-and-bone business, Harold finds himself locked in for the night, whereupon he encounters the ghost of his father, who he last saw skewered to the wall.

The play then takes the typical combative form of Steptoe asking his son why he killed him and Harold explaining why he was driven to this act.

Ray admits that he was struck by uncertainty when writing the piece. "Halfway through doing it, a couple of other nostalgic shows appeared on stage Round The Horne Revisited and The Play What I Wrote, and I feared that might kill it but I don't think it has," he says.

"What we were more worried about was having someone impersonating Steptoe and Son, which was the whole point and essence of Round The Horne Revisited, and that's the only way that show would work. But I always thought our show would stand up on its own with two fresh actors, even if they weren't Willie Wilfred Brambell and Harry Harry H Corbett, but we do realise that people are going to expect someone that sounds like them."

Ray was keeping one card close to his chest. "We have cast it...but don't ask me who they are!" he says. However, all other subjects were open house, not least his thoughts on writing with John Antrobus rather than Alan Simpson.

"It's been no trouble at all, though I didn't write it with Alan, who turned it away, probably wisely, though I couldn't. John knew the shows as well as anyone," he says.

"I didn't worry that it wouldn't still be as funny; I only worried about having two new actors and the fact it's on the stage, not television. But you don't really write differently for the stage, though you know it's a different audience each night, and there are limitations on stage, such as you can't do quick changes of scene and location."

Ray cannot wait for the opening night. "You try and keep me away," he says, exiting stage left until October 24.

Steptoe And Son In Murder At Oil Drum Lane, York Theatre Royal, October 24 to November 12. Box office: 01904 623568.

Updated: 09:10 Friday, July 22, 2005