In 1962, scriptwriters Galton and Simpson, who had been successful with "Hancock's Half Hour", invited Corbett to appear in "The Offer", an episode of the BBC's anthology series of one-off comedy plays, "Comedy Playhouse", written by Galton and Simpson. He played Harold Steptoe, a rag-and-bone man who lives with his irascible widower father, Albert (Wilfrid Brambell) in a dilapidated house attached to their junkyard and stable for their cart horse, Hercules. At the time, Corbett was working at the Bristol Old Vic, where he appeared as "Macbeth".