N. F. Simpson - Film and Television

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. 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. The central characters of Tinkle were expanded into seven half-hours of Three Rousing Tinkles (1966) and Four Tall Tinkles (1967), featuring Edwin Apps and Pauline Devaney 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).