He created the iconic working class tramp figure played by Arthur Haynes in the latter's long-running and top-rating ATV comedy series.

[2] In 1965, Speight wrote a BBC TV pilot which became the 1966 series Till Death Us Do Part featuring Warren Mitchell as Alf Garnett, a reactionary Conservative-voting working-class man with a chip on his shoulder and an angry word on everything.

Speight's later series Curry and Chips (1969) was a more controversial sitcom from LWT for the ITV channel, soon cancelled on the instructions of the Independent Broadcasting Authority.

[14] In 1988 Speight wrote a set of special short sketches for inclusion in London's Museum of the Moving Image (MOMI) in a feature called "Ask Alf".

[15] LWT put forward a series of specials featuring Warren Mitchell as Alf Garnett, giving his thoughts on a variety of subjects.