
Sound
Dudley Simpson
Born 1922-10-04 · Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
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 and worked as a composer on British television. He worked on 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 1970s, contributing to 62 stories over almost 300 episodes – more than any other composer." Among his television work was the music for Moonstrike (1963), theme music for The Last of the Mohicans (1971), 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.
Acting credits
2.0Melvyn Bragg presents this 1977 documentary about Doctor Who from BBC2's 'The Lively Arts' strand, featuring extensive behind-the-scenes coverage of the making of The Talons of Weng-Chiang and looking back at the history of the programme and its psychological impact on the viewers, particularly children.
Whose Doctor Who
1977
8.1Death stalks the fogbound streets of Victorian London: young women are going missing, horribly mutilated bodies are found floating in the Thames and criminal gangs terrorize the innocent. At the heart of this tangled web sits the mysterious Li H'sen Chang, sorcerer and hypnotist, and his grotesque sidekick Mister Sin. The Doctor dons deerstalker hat and cape to seek out the sinister force lurking in the shadows of the metropolis, for the Talons of Weng-Chiang are reaching out to shred the human race.
Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang
1977