BBC Worldwide pulls 'Steptoe' drama DVD

BBC Worldwide has been ordered to pull a DVD containing a drama about Steptoe and Son actor Harry H. Corbett after complaints about its portrayal of the star's late second wife.

The BBC's editorial standards committee found that The Curse of Steptoe, starring Jason Isaacs and Phil Davis, was "inaccurate and unfair", despite the BBC having already re-edited it twice.

Over the last two years, Maureen Corbett's brother has complained to the BBC that the programme wrongly implied his sister had a casual relationship with the actor.

The BBC Trust said this week that the drama still gave an unfair portrayal of the relationship and had not been "sufficiently edited" since previous committee rulings.

In November 2008, the BBC was ordered not to repeat The Curse of Steptoe without editing the programme, due to its "numerous specific inaccuracies".

A re-edited version was broadcast on December 28, but the committee ruled in May 2009 that the relationship between Corbett and Maureen was still portrayed inaccurately.

Despite further work in the editing suite, the production team has still failed to correct the accuracy issues and so a DVD containing the drama was ordered to be pulled this week.

The BBC Trust said: "The committee concluded that having taken into account both scenes, in respect of the portrayal of the relationship between Maureen and Harry, it found that the re-editing had not changed the nature of the relationship sufficiently for an audience to remove the impression of a casual relationship.

"The committee also wished to reiterate its earlier concern that whilst it did not want to inhibit writers and producers from using creative licence with a drama of this kind, it was important when dealing with facts not to unfairly distort the truth."

BBC Worldwide said yesterday that it will withdraw the Legends of Comedy DVD, which contains The Curse of Steptoe as an episode.