The Daily Telegraph

Dudley Simpson

Composer and conductor who used synthesize­rs to create eerie music for Doctor Who serials

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DUDLEY SIMPSON, who has died aged 95, was a conductor and composer best known for his spooky soundtrack­s to more than 200 episodes of Doctor Who between 1964 and 1980; he also wrote the music for all but two of the 52 episodes of Blake’s 7, the dystopian science-fiction series set 700 years in the future, that ran from 1978 to 1981.

Talented and adaptable, Simpson found himself working at the cutting edge of sound technology, often using the latest equipment to create his eerie tunes. Although the Doctor Who storylines ranged from romantic to sci-fi, he approached them all with the same degree of profession­alism. “I always treat it as serious drama and try to give the music a sense of doom,” he told Radio Times in 1973.

He recalled sitting up much of the night to write the scores, which he would deliver to the copyist at all hours. On one occasion he was pulled over by a police officer who wanted to know why he had driven past him three or four times. When Simpson explained that he was delivering music for Doctor Who, the officer said: “Well, you’d better be going on your way then.”

He made an appearance in a six-part storyline called “The Talons of Weng-chiang” with Tom Baker, the fourth Doctor. “They had me dolled up in a set of tails, and I conducted my own music, which I’d recorded beforehand,” he recalled. Annoyingly, the music was often an afterthoug­ht for the directors, and was sometimes only considered after most of the budget had been spent. “If I could do something with two musicians they would be very pleased,” he said. Occasional­ly something special was called for, such as in “Spearhead from Space”, which had eight performers – “and they had to pay for them”.

At other times Simpson was able to rely on the BBC Radiophoni­c Workshop’s new synthesize­r, such as for “Terror of the Autons” and “Curse of Peladon”. He soon discovered that the tape recorders could be set up and left running. “Barry [Letts, the director] and I would go off for deep-fried Kentucky chicken,” he recalled. “It was hilarious, but it worked.”

Dudley George Simpson was born in East Malvern, near Melbourne, Australia, on October 4 1922. He started playing the piano while at Melbourne Boys’ High School and at 13 won a radio station’s interstate piano competitio­n. During the war he saw service in New Guinea, where one of his hands was injured when a truck he was driving containing explosives was hit during a Japanese raid.

He recovered in part by playing the piano and entered the Melbourne Conservato­rium of Music. He joined the Borovansky Ballet as assistant conductor, becoming musical director of the company in 1957. Here he met Margot Fonteyn, who urged him to try his luck in Britain.

He had been in London for 12 months when he was introduced to Hugo Rignold, musical director of the Royal Ballet, recalling: “He said, ‘So you’re a conductor, are you? How would you like to go on next Saturday?’” There was little time for rehearsal, but he was soon being called upon as a regular guest conductor.

During the early 1960s he appeared frequently with the touring section of the Royal Ballet. It was a time of extensive overseas work, often with Margot Fonteyn. But his ambition was to write music.

At a party in Holland Park he met Gerard Glaister, a television producer, who invited him to compose for a programme called Jack’s Horrible Luck in 1961. It was followed two years later by Moonstrike, which Simpson thought was a terrible programme although it ran for two years.

This led to his first Doctor Who work, when the director Mervyn Pinfield contacted him wanting a score for “Planet of the Giants”. “I used plain piano music for that story,” he said. During the 1970s he also wrote the music for BBC dramas, including The Last of the Mohicans and Shakespear­e adaptation­s.

A small, dapper figure with a trim moustache, Simpson made occasional return visits to Australia. One was in 1968 when he conducted a Melbourne orchestra. However, he struggled to find suitable opportunit­ies there.

After being dropped from Doctor Who in 1980 he became disenchant­ed with the show and put his music aside. He returned to Australia in 1987, settling in the Sydney suburb of Sylvania. But he made his peace with the BBC in 2013, when he was invited to attend the Doctor Who Prom at the Royal Albert Hall.

In 1960 he married Jill Bathurst, a member of the Borovansky Ballet. She survives him with two daughters and a son.

Dudley Simpson, born October 4 1922, died November 4 2017

 ??  ?? Simpson: he made an appearance in a six-part storyline, with Tom Baker as the Doctor, called ‘The Talons of Weng-chiang’
Simpson: he made an appearance in a six-part storyline, with Tom Baker as the Doctor, called ‘The Talons of Weng-chiang’

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