After a whirlwind romance, the couple are married, although the actual wedding ceremony is delayed when Albert, acting as best man, loses the ring somewhere in the yard.

When they are finally alone and begin to consummate their marriage, they are interrupted by Albert's cries of distress from the adjoining room, and discover that he has contracted food poisoning from some of the local cuisine.

When he finally receives delayed postcards and a letter from her, she tells him she has decided their marriage cannot work and has taken up with a British holiday rep at the hotel where they were staying.

Harold offers to take care of them both and persuades Zita to go with him, but on returning home Albert makes it clear that he does not like her and she flees.

[8] The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: The best of the Steptoe episodes on television owed their appeal to a delicate balance between pathos and farce.

In the enclosed world of the junk yard and the shabby house, Galton and Simpson created in miniature a tragi-comic family situation which was universally recognisable.

The old man's emotional blackmail and Harold's guilty love-hate for him bound them into a helpless, unbreakable relationship which was nevertheless capable of enough variations to provide a series of short and shapely anecdotes.

The ingredients of the film version are exactly the same and the plot lines are entirely predictable, but the mere scale of the larger screen has spoiled the intimacy of the scene and coarsened the characterisations.

One suspects that the BBC Steptoe is very much an ensemble affair and that it is the absence of the familiar production team that has taken the edge off both writing and performance.

"[10] Leslie Halliwell said: "Strained attempt to transfer the TV rag-and-bone comedy (which in the US became Sanford and Son) to the big screen.