Norman Frederick Simpson was an English playwright closely associated with the
Theatre of the Absurd died he was 92. To his friends he was known as Wally Simpson, in comic reference to the
abdication crisis of 1936.
| (29 January 1919 – 27 August 2011) |
Early years
Born in London, Simpson studied at
Emanuel School before taking a job as a bank clerk. During the
Second World War war he served in the
Royal Artillery and
Intelligence Corps, travelling to Italy,
Palestine and
Cyprus. Following studies at
Birkbeck College for a degree in
English Literature from the
University of London after the war,
[2] but Simpson taught English in
adult education for almost 20 years.
[3]
Theatre debut
The turning point in Simpson’s life came in 1957 when he won third prize in
The Observer newspaper’s quest for new writers, headed by theatre critic
Kenneth Tynan.
[4] A Resounding Tinkle premiered at the
Royal Court Theatre, London on 1 December 1957 with
Nigel Davenport as Bro Paradock and
Wendy Craig as Middie Paradock. Under pressure from
Tony Richardson,
[5]
Simpson, to his regret, truncated the play to a 50-minute one-act
piece. In 1959 the first complete production of the two-act version was
performed by the Cambridge Theatre Actors, under the direction of
John Bird with
Peter Cook in the leading role.
[6] The Royal Court belatedly staged a full rendition on 17 January 2006.
Style
A Resounding Tinkle typifies Simpson’s aversion to plot and
establishes his talent for memorable one-liners and non-sequiturs. As
with all of his subsequent work, the play demands absolutely straight
delivery from actors. Such an approach fosters a conviction within the
audience that the characters are living in a form of reality, where the
formation of a government can be arranged via door-to-door enquiries.
The extraordinary and impossible are treated as perfectly rational
everyday events. This comic balance is recognised as a major influence
on the early work of Peter Cook, particularly the
E. L. Wisty monologues.
Many comparisons have been drawn to the work of key absurdist playwright
Eugène Ionesco.
However, Simpson denies any link, adding that he had never even heard
of the writer when he commenced a career in nonsense. In his own view,
the valid literary parallels are with
Lewis Carroll,
James Thurber and
P. G. Wodehouse.
[7]
Simpson’s early work must also be viewed in its cultural context.
BBC Radio’s
The Goon Show was widely admired, bringing surrealism to the masses for the first time. Plays such as
A Resounding Tinkle arguably gentrified the idiom for London’s theatregoers, and with them the highbrow elite.
Theatre career
A close relationship between Simpson and the Royal Court continued after
Tinkle, encompassing the plays
The Hole (1958), his key work
One Way Pendulum (1959) and
The Cresta Run (1965). He wrote
The Form (1961) for the
Arts Theatre, and contributed to the West End revues
One To Another (1959),
One Over The Eight (1961) and
On The Avenue (1961), which variously involved
Peter Cook,
John Mortimer,
Harold Pinter,
Beryl Reid and
Kenneth Williams.
Following a long break from substantial theatre writing, Simpson returned to the Royal Court in 1972 with
Was He Anyone?, which formed the basis of
Harry Bleachbaker, a novel published in 1976.
In November 1976, Simpson was appointed Literary Manager of the
English Stage Company at the Royal Court.
[8] Having supported new work by
Barrie Keefe,
Sam Shepard and
Snoo Wilson, he left in April 1978,
[9] returning to theatre for an
Eduardo De Filippo translation,
Inner Voices, at the
National Theatre in 1983.
Radio
The
BBC were at first resistant to the new wave of English
playwrights that emerged in the late 1950s. Simpson’s
A Resounding Tinkle and
The Hole were both rejected by the radio network controller in November 1959.
[10] Tinkle was eventually broadcast on
the BBC Third Programme in July 1960, in its one-act form with
Deryck Guyler and
Alison Leggatt as the Paradocks.
That year saw Simpson’s first radio commission, a sketch for the
BBC Home Service’s weekly revue
Monday Night At Home. Cold feet amongst the production team caused it to be dropped before transmission.
[11] Subsequently Simpson’s radio work rarely strayed from the confines of the Third Programme, most notably the 1982 monologues
Snippets, read by
Richard Vernon.
Film and television
The
Theatre of the Absurd arrived on television in 1961, with productions of Simpson plays on both British networks.
BBC TV produced a live performance of
One Way Pendulum, now lost, whilst
Granada mounted a shortened version of
A Resounding Tinkle for
ITV.
He was invited to contribute to BBC TV’s
That Was The Week That Was, although his sketch, ‘Televising Parliament’, was dropped due to overruns in the live transmission on 16 November 1963.
[12] and has never surfaced.
Hot on the heels of his
Summer Holiday success, director
Peter Yates agreed to shoot Simpson’s most celebrated stage play,
One Way Pendulum, for release in 1964. Starring
Eric Sykes,
George Cole and a mute
Jonathan Miller, Yates’ rendition of the play captured Simpson’s matter-of-fact approach to nonsense but failed at the box office.
As the BBC’s Acting Assistant Head of Light Entertainment,
Frank Muir invited Simpson to write for
BBC2 in 1965.
[13] The central characters of
Tinkle were expanded into seven half-hours of
Three Rousing Tinkles (1966) and
Four Tall Tinkles (1967), featuring Edwin Apps
[14] and Pauline Devaney
[15] as Bro and Middie. He followed this with
World in Ferment (1969), a six-part parody of current affairs programming starring
John Bird,
Eleanor Bron,
Jack Shepherd and
Angela Thorne. His final series for television was the unsuccessful
Charley’s Grants (1970), co-written with
John Fortune and
John Wells, starring
Hattie Jacques, and produced by
Ian MacNaughton, the producer of
Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
Plays followed, including a satire on advertising,
Thank You Very Much (1971), and an effective three-hander for
ITV,
Silver Wedding (1974), directed by
Mike Newell. Simpson’s highest-profile production for television was
Elementary, My Dear Watson (1973), a
Sherlock Holmes parody for
BBC One’s
Comedy Playhouse starring
John Cleese and
Willie Rushton. It has been screened several times at the
National Film Theatre in London.
It is frequently argued that Simpson’s work operates better in small
doses, so it is natural that he should have produced so much sketch
material for television.
World in Ferment lent towards this strength, and his skilful monologues for women were seen again in
But Seriously – It’s Sheila Hancock (1972). Other vehicles included
Ned Sherrin’s
A Rather Reassuring Programme (1977),
Beryl Reid Says… Good Evening (1968) and
The Dick Emery Show (1977–1980).
Later activities
Simpson lived in
Cornwall in later life.
A radio documentary about his life and work,
Reality is an Illusion Caused by Lack of N. F. Simpson, produced by
Curtains For Radio on
BBC Radio 4 on 5 April 2007, featured contributions from
Eleanor Bron,
Jonathan Coe,
John Fortune,
Sir Jonathan Miller,
Sir John Mortimer,
David Nobbs,
Ned Sherrin,
Eric Sykes and Simpson himself.
It featured material recorded at a workshop for a new play,
If So, Then Yes,
his first full-length piece in 30 years. The Royal Court presented a
rehearsed reading on 11 July 2007. The script was published in February
2009. The production made its world premiere at the
Jermyn Street Theatre in September, 2010, featuring actor Roddy Maude-Roxby, who appeared in the 1959 production of Simpson's play,
One Way Pendulum, at the Royal Court Theatre.
Absurdia, a grouping of short plays by Simpson and Michael Frayn ran at the
The Donmar Warehouse from July to September 2007. The short version of
A Resounding Tinkle and the sketch
Gladly Otherwise were directed by
Douglas Hodge and starred
Peter Capaldi. Both scripts were republished by Faber to mark this revival.
A London revival of
Was He Anyone? was staged at the
Union Theatre during November 2007 by
Oblique House.
A comprehensive season of Simpson's work for the screen – both silver and small – took place at BFI Southbank during May 2008.
If So, Then Yes premiered at the Jermyn Street Theatre, London, running from 7 September – 2 October 2010.
Theatre
Radio
- A Resounding Tinkle [one-act play] (1960)
- Something Rather Effective [play] (1972)
- Sketches for Radio [sketches] (1974)
- Whither the Ancient Burial Mounds of Old New Brunswick (1979)
- The Parrot Cage Inspector [monologue] (1982)
- Snippets [monologue] (1982)
- Snippets Two [series] (1982)
Television
- A Resounding Tinkle [for Television Playhouse] (1961)
- Uhu… Huh? [sketches for Canadian television] (1965)
- 'Make-A-Man, or The Human Being: Is It Obsolete?' [for New Release] (1966)
- Three Rousing Tinkles [series] (1966)
- Four Tall Tinkles [series] (1967)
- Beryl Reid Says… Good Evening [sketches] (1968)
- World in Ferment [series] (1969)
- Thank You Very Much [for Play For Today] (1971)
- But Seriously – It’s Sheila Hancock [sketch writer] (1972)
- 'People Ltd.' [for Full House] (1972)
- Elementary, My Dear Watson [for Comedy Playhouse] (1973)
- Silver Wedding [for Late Night Theatre] (1974)
- An Upward Fall [for Crown Court] (1977)
- 'One Of Our St Bernard Dogs Is Missing' [poem, for Closedown] (1977)
- A Rather Reassuring Programme [sketch writer] (1977)
- Wainwright’s Law [scene writer for educational series] (1980)
Films
Recordings
- He’s Innocent of Watergate [sketch writer] (1974)
Publications
- A Resounding Tinkle [one-act] (1958)
- The Observer Plays [featuring two-act Tinkle] (1958)
- New English Dramatists [featuring two-act Tinkle] (1960)
- One Way Pendulum: A Farce in a New Dimension (1960)
- 'The Overcoat' [short story for Man About Town magazine, illustrated by Peter Blake] (1960)
- Sketches from One To Another (1960)
- 'The Strawlined Hydrant' [short story for Vogue magazine] (1960)
- New Directions: Five One-Act Plays in the Modern Idiom [featuring one-act Tinkle] (1961)
- The Hole, and Other Plays & Sketches (1964)
- The Long and the Short and the Tall [featuring one-act Tinkle] (1964)
- The New British Drama [featuring One Way Pendulum] (1964)
- A Resounding Tinkle [two-act] (1968)
- Some Tall Tinkles [selected television scripts] (1968)
- Harry Bleachbaker: A Novel (1976)
- Play Ten [featuring two short plays] (1977)
- A Resounding Tinkle [two-act, also featuring 'Gladly Otherwise'] (2007)
Unproduced or unfinished works
- Crates [stage play] (1957)
- 'Out There By All Means But Not In Here If You Don’t Mind' [sketch] (1960)
- 'Televising Parliament' [sketch] (1963)
- A Seasonal Swing [television play] (pre-1965)
- The Consultant [television play] (1965)
- The Row [television play] (1965)
- Afternoon Tea (In A High-Ceilinged Room) [television play] (1975), [radio play] (1978)
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