Dudley Simpson

Dudley George Simpson (4 October 1922 – 4 November 2017) was an Australian composer and conductor. He was the Principal Conductor of the Royal Opera House orchestra for three years, although he is best known for his work as a composer on British television, especially his long association with the BBC science-fiction series Doctor Who, for which he composed incidental music during the 1960s and 1970s. When Simpson died aged 95 in 2017, The Guardian wrote that he was "at his most prolific as the creator of incidental music for Doctor Who in the 1960s and 70s, contributing to 62 stories over almost 300 episodes – more than any other composer."[1]

Dudley Simpson
Born
Dudley George Simpson

(1922-10-04)4 October 1922
Malvern East, Victoria, Australia
Died4 November 2017(2017-11-04) (aged 95)
Sydney, Australia
OccupationComposer, conductor, musician
Known forMusic for Doctor Who

Among his early television work was the music for Moonstrike (1963). Simpson was also responsible for the theme music for The Brothers (1972), The Tomorrow People (1973), Moonbase 3 (1973), The Ascent of Man (1973) and Blake's 7 (1978). He also composed music for several plays from the BBC Television Shakespeare series.

Early life and career

Simpson was born in the Melbourne suburb of Malvern East.[2] He learned piano as a child, served in New Guinea during World War II and then studied orchestration and composition at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. Simpson became assistant conductor, pianist and later musical director for the Borovansky Ballet Company, forerunner to The Australian Ballet. He moved to the UK and after a season as guest conductor at Covent Garden, he became Principal Conductor of the Royal Opera House orchestra for three years.[3] He accompanied the touring section of the Royal Ballet with Margot Fonteyn as principal ballerina.[4]

Television work

Doctor Who

Simpson's first work on Doctor Who was during William Hartnell's era as the First Doctor in Planet of Giants, in 1964,[5] but he is primarily associated with the programme in the 1970s. He also appeared on screen as a music hall conductor in the Fourth Doctor story The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1977) at the invitation of Philip Hinchcliffe who was the series producer at the time.[6] Simpson had to be paid a special fee for this appearance, as he was a member of the Musicians' Union and not Equity.

When John Nathan-Turner became producer of Doctor Who in 1980, he decided that the music needed to be updated, and took Simpson out for a meal telling him how much he appreciated his work on Doctor Who but that it would no longer be required as he intended to have the BBC Radiophonic Workshop provide music from that point. While Simpson was contracted to score Shada, the unfinished nature of that production meant he never started work. As a result, his last broadcast work on Doctor Who was for The Horns of Nimon.[7] In the 2017 restoration of "Shada", a dedication to Simpson was shown in the end credits.

Blake's 7

Blake's 7 ran for 4 series totalling 52 episodes in all. Simpson provided the incidental music for 50 of the 52 episodes that were broadcast from 1978 to 1981, including the theme music.[3] The two exceptions are the episode entitled "Duel" (the eighth episode of series 1) for which the director Douglas Camfield chose to use stock music, and "Gambit" (the eleventh episode of the second series) which was scored by the special sound creator of series 2 to 4, Elizabeth Parker.

The Tomorrow People

Another science fiction series Simpson developed for was The Tomorrow People, although his role was limited to producing the theme tune, with Brian Hodgson producing the series music.[8][1]

Doctor Who credits

Between 1964 and 1980, Simpson composed the incidental music for the following Doctor Who serials:

gollark: Justyn: pretty sure it is possible but hard.
gollark: Make one what? Tape encoder?
gollark: I have a library for writing arbitrary data (even functions!) to tape, it makes HORRIBLE-SOUNDING tapes.
gollark: Unless it started doing some ridiculous madness.
gollark: Well, you can, but it'll just write the URL to it.

References
  1. "Dudley Simpson obituary" by Anthony Hayward, The Guardian, 15 November 2017
  2. Gainsford, Jim (7 November 2017). "Shire resident who composed the music for Doctor Who, Dudley Simpson, dies aged 95". The Western Advocate. Bathurst, New South Wales. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  3. "Dudley Simpson dead: Doctor Who composer dies, age 95" by Jack Shepherd, The Independent, 6 November 2017
  4. "Dr Who music man here". The Canberra Times. 9 May 1968. Retrieved 23 January 2016.
  5. https://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/planetofgiants/detail.shtml
  6. Dudley Simpson (1985), 29 September 2009, drwhointerviews.wordpress.com
  7. https://www.radiotimes.com/news/2011-03-06/the-horns-of-nimon/
  8. Series credits for The Tomorrow People
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