Steptoe and Son writer Alan Simpson dies aged 87

[dutchman]

Alan Simpson, of writing duo Galton and Simpson, has died at the age of 87.



The pair created sitcoms including Hancock's Half Hour and Steptoe and Son

Alan Simpson formed, with Ray Galton, one of the great television scriptwriting partnerships.

Their early work with Tony Hancock pioneered what became known as situation comedy.

They went on to create Steptoe and Son, which became the most watched comedy on TV over its 12-year run.

But, although they continued to write, they failed to replicate the success of their early work.

Alan Simpson was born in Brixton, London on 27 November 1929.

After leaving school, he obtained a job as a shipping clerk before contracting tuberculosis. He became so ill that he was not expected to live and was given the last rites.

However, he survived, and while a patient in a sanatorium in Surrey he found himself alongside another teenage TB sufferer named Ray Galton.

They discovered a shared love of American humorists such as Damon Runyon and had both listened to the BBC radio comedy programmes Take It From Here and The Goon Shows.

The pair also linked up with several other promising new comedy writers and performers of the time, notably Eric Sykes, Peter Sellers, Frankie Howerd and Tony Hancock.

Hancock, who was becoming increasingly self-critical and drinking heavily, sacked his writers in 1961. Unwilling to lose them, the BBC commissioned them to write scripts for Comedy Playhouse, a series of one-off sitcoms.

One play, entitled, The Offer, spawned Steptoe and Son, the tale of two rag-and-bone merchants, a father and son, living in Oil Drum Lane, Shepherd's Bush.

The original four series ran between 1962 and 1965 and the show was revived between 1970 and 1974, during which time two feature film versions were also released.

It proved to be the high point for the duo. There was further work with Frankie Howerd and, in 1977, Yorkshire TV attempted to replicate the success of Comedy Playhouse with Galton & Simpson's Playhouse, although none of the episodes produced a series.

Simpson quit writing in 1978 to pursue his other business interests although he and Galton remained close friends. In 1996 they reunited to update some of their best-known scripts for the comedian Paul Merton.