Peter Nichols, mordant playwright of ‘A Day in the Death of Joe Egg,’ 92

Peter Nichols, a British playwright who shook up 1960s theater with “A Day in the Death of Joe Egg,” an unexpectedly humorous story of a brain-damaged child, and who went on to acquire a reputation as one of his country’s finest and most cantankerous dramatists, died Sept. 7 at his home in Oxford, England. He was 92.

His death was announced by his agency, Alan Brodie Representation, which did not provide additional details.

In a mordantly funny style, Nichols addressed themes of death, disability and homosexuality, incorporating elements of vaudeville, British music-hall entertainment and his own life and upbringing. His work induced squirming in the audience as well as occasional scorn from English censors, but he won four of the London Evening Standard’s prestigious drama awards, was twice nominated for the Tony award for best play and, in 2018, was named a commander of the Order of the British Empire.

A prolific writer who had maintained a daily journal since the age of 18, Nichols also penned novels, radio plays, poetry, and film and television scripts, including for the popular British crime series “Inspector Morse” and for “Georgy Girl,” a 1966 romantic comedy based on a best-selling novel by Margaret Forster.

But he was best known for his first major play, “Joe Egg,” which premiered in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1967 before opening on London’s West End. Like most of his works, it was semi-autobiographical, about a father raising a brain-damaged child - described onstage as “a vegetable” - who loosely resembled Nichols’s daughter Abigail, who spent most of her life in a hospital before dying in 1971 at the age of 11.

The play was initially bitter and crushing in its depiction of the girl’s disability and her parents’ struggle to care for her. But with help from director Michael Blakemore, Nichols rewrote “Joe Egg,” turning it into something that he described as “more Coward than Strindberg,” referring to the droll playwright Noël Coward and the serious-minded dramatist August Strindberg.

Its characters used humor as a coping mechanism, rattling off jokes while hurling abuse up at God (described as “a manic-depressive rugby footballer”) and out into the audience.

“There is no way that ‘Joe Egg’ can be warm and funny, which is why, since it is warm and funny, its achievement is so great,” screenwriter William Goldman wrote in his 1969 book “The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway.” “Personally, I didn’t believe that such a play was possible; it expanded my view of the world.”

Opening on Broadway in 1968, “Joe Egg” ran for 154 performances and starred Albert Finney and Zena Walker. It received four Tony nominations, including for best play, and inspired a 1972 film with Alan Bates and Janet Suzman.