 |
|
|
|||
|
News
|
|||
|
News
|
Dateline: 1st September, 2011
N F Simpson (1919 - 2011) Playwright N F Simpson has died at the age of 92. Writing in a very surrealistic style, he is best known for two plays, A Resounding Tinkle (1957) and One Way Pendulum (1959), but in fact produced seven others between 1957 and the stage premiere (at Jermyn Street in 2010) of his If So, Then Yes, which was first given a rehearsed reading at the Royal Court in 2007. He also wrote many sketches for the stage, radio and television and a number of adaptations, including Chekhov's The Bear in 1972. He was often described as being part of the Theatre of the Absurd, particularly to Ionesco, but he always rejected the comparison, saying that he had never even heard of the Italian playwright when he began his own writing career. His influences, he said, were Lewis Carroll, James Thurber and P G Wodehouse. When he began writing The Goon Show was at the height of its popularity and many critics have said that his work was a "highbrow" version of that surreal and anarchic radio show. A Resounding Tinkle was first produced at the Royal Court by the English Stage Company, alongside the work of John Osborne and John Arden, even though his work was so different to that of his contemporaries. He returned to the Court in the November of 1976 as the English Stage Company's Literary Manager where he supported writers such as Barrie Keefe, Sam Shepard and Snoo Wilson. He left that post in April 1978.
Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
|
||
|
|
