NF Simpson

In THE 1950s and 1960s NF Simpson was one of the Angry Young Men of the British theatre and wrote some surreal and zany plays which equally delighted and amazed audiences. Along with John Osborne, John Arden and Ann Jellicoe, he became one of the influential playwrights resident at London’s Royal Court Theatre who changed the character of drama in the UK.

Although Simpson’s writing was less aggressive and political than his contemporaries there was an eccentric quality in all his plays that much influenced the Goons and, later, the Monty Python writers and Peter Cook. He was not a prolific writer but his work enjoyed a recent resurgence and his last play If So, Then Yes was seen in London last year.

Norman Frederick Simpson always used his initials but was known as “Wally” after Wallis Simpson, the wife of the Duke of Windsor. His father was a strict Baptist who forbade the family from attending the theatre or cinema.

He was educated at Emanuel School in south London and then read English at the University of London. After national service in the Royal Artillery Simpson worked in a bank and served with the intelligence corps in the Second World War.

From 1946-62 he taught at the City of Westminster College but throughout these years Simpson began writing. In 1957 his first play, A Resounding Tinkle, won third prize in an Observer playwriting competition.

The play was seen one Sunday at a “try out” evening at the Royal Court but was not easy to stage: the plot centred around a couple who found an elephant in their garden. Such fleets of fantasy were to be typical of Simpson’s vivid and extravagant imagination.

The drama was shortened and produced as a double bill directed by Bill Gaskill (with a cast led by Wendy Craig, Nigel Davenport and Robert Stephens) and played to packed houses. Kenneth Tynan in the Observer wrote that Simpson was clearly “no flash in the pen, but a true lord of language, capable of using words with the sublime, outrageous authority of Humpty Dumpty”

In 1959 Simpson wrote the revue One to Another which was produced at the Lyric Hammersmith before going into the West End. Eleanor Fazan directed a cast led by Sheila Hancock.

“Wally was a kind and gentle man. Very natural without any airs and grace” Fazan told The Scotsman yesterday.

“He had a fine understanding of what would work on stage and a genuine sense of comedy. His wit was never malicious or cruel and he had a wonderful way with words.”

In 1960 Simpson wrote One Way Pendulum – arguably his most successful play. A family believes that weighing machines can be taught to sing the Hallelujah Chorus and, in the movie (also written by Simpson) a bemused Jonathan Miller chants away to a weighing machine and is answered by his weight. Miller revived the play at the Old Vic in 1988 and audiences were divided in their appreciation. Its charm – an absurdist play performed with strict conviction and straight faces – was certainly unusual.

Simpson did write several more television plays, most notably Elementary My Dear Watson, a Sherlock Holmes spoof which starred John Cleese and Willie Rushton for the BBC Comedy Playhouse. For some years he suffered ill-health and decided to opt out of writing. He toured, for a decade, the canals of Britain in a barge. He later said it had been the happiest time of his life.

He returned to active work in the theatre and was appointed literary manager of the Royal Court in 1976 where he did much to further the careers of Barrie Keefe, Sam Shephard and Snoo Wilson. He was keen top preserve a voice in the theatre and in 1978 translated Eduardo De Filippo’s Inner Voices which was performed at the National Theatre in 1983 starring Sir Ralph Richardson shortly before his death. Simpson saw a renewed interest in his work when the tiny Donmar Theatre in Covent Garden mounted two of his early plays along with a new play by Michael Frayn in 2007. Titled Absurdia, the evening was directed by Douglas Hodge and demonstrated how surreal theatre can be weirdly funny.

If So, Then Yes was intended to be produced by the National Theatre but there were problems over casting – not least by the large cast required. One stage direction in the Simpson’s script read: “5,000 Red Indians – optional.” The play was eventually performed in 2010 in a smaller venue and gained an excited young audience – many of whom knew little of Simpson’s plays.

Simpson, who had lived in Cornwall for some years, is survived by his partner Elizabeth Holder and a daughter from his marriage to Joyce Bartlett.

Alasdair Steven