'There are no words'

Comedy writing legend Alan Simpson dies

Comedy writing legend Alan Simpson has died at the age of 87.

With his professional partner Ray Galton, he wrote Hancock's Half Hour and created Steptoe And Son. He had fought a long battle with lung disease, his manager Tessa Le Bars said.

In tribute she said: ‘Having had the privilege of working with Alan and Ray for over 50 years, the last 40 as agent, business manager and friend, and latterly as Alan's companion and carer, I am deeply saddened to lose Alan after a brave battle with lung disease.’

A statement from Ray Galton and his family said: ‘There are no words to express our sense of loss and sadness at the passing of Alan Simpson, Ray's partner and family friend over the last 70 years.

‘From their first attempts at humour in Milford sanatorium, through a lifetime of work together, the strength of Alan and Ray’s personal and professional bond was always at the heart of their success.'

Others paying tribute include Danny Baker, who said Simpson was ’an absolute giant’ and that there is ‘no praise too high for what he and Ray created’.

David Walliams said: 'Alan Simpson was half of one of the greatest comedy writing duos of all time with Ray Galton Hancock & Steptoe & Son are masterpieces' – and writer Neil Gaiman added: ‘They changed radio comedy, then TV comedy.

After meeting at the Surrey sanatorium when both were diagnosed with tuberculosis as teenagers, Galton and Simpson went on to make comedy history, and were credited with adding a new social realism and fully-formed characters to a genre previously defined by old-school gags.

The pair started writing for Derek Roy on his vehicle Happy Go Lucky, but it was their partnership with Hancock that would define them. They created his radio persona in 1954, and continued to work with him until 1961, when he suddenly fired them and his long-term manager Beryl Vertue, in a bid to cast off his old associations.

After their partnership with Hancock ended, they wrote a series of Comedy Playhouse one-offs for the BBC – one of which, The Offer, became Steptoe and Son, which ran from 1962 to 1974 and reached an audience of 28 million. They cast actors Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett as the father-and-son rag-and-bone men for added dramatic clout, rather than using comedians. It was also successfully remade as Stamford and Son in the US

Galton and Simpson also wrote television, film and stage scripts for the likes of Frankie Howerd, Peter Sellers, Leonard Rossiter, Arthur Lowe and Les Dawson, among others, and both writers were awarded OBEs in 2000 for their contribution to British television.

Le Bars also paid tribute to Professor Mark Britton and the NHS doctors and nurses in Aspen Ward at St Peter’s Hospital in Chertsey, Surrey, ’who looked after Alan exceptionally well in these last weeks’.

Here is Harry Enfield presenting Galton and Simson with a Chortle Award in 2013: