Playwright. He received notoriety as an award-winning British playwright in the second half of the 20th century. His very first play “Dry Rot” in 1954 ran for a successful 1,475 performances, and this followed with “Simple Spymer” in 1958, which ran for 1,404 performances in three years. He went on to write “The Brides of March” in 1960, “Diplomatic Baggage” in 1964 and “Oh! Clarence” in 1968. This followed with his collaboration with Ray Cooney writing “Now, Now Darling,” which was adapted to a film vision. They continued in 1968 as a team with “Move Over Mrs. Markham” and “My Giddy Aunt” and in 1973 “There Goes the Bride.” He had a long relationship with BBC writing over two hundred episodes of television comedies. For television he wrote episodes of the sitcom “Hugh and I” airing between 1962 to 1965 and “Happy Ever After” between 1974 to 1977. Besides Cooney, he collaborated his writing with Michael Pertwee, Anthony Marriott, Ian Davidson, and Jeremy Lloyd. His “Fresh Field” won an Emmy in 1984 and followed by “French Fields,” which was collaborated with Davidson and ran until 1991. He collaborated with Dave Freeman of “Benny Hill” fame to write “Key For Two,” which was voted “Comedy of the Year at the Society of West End Theater Awards” in 1982 and nominated in 1986 for what is now the Olivier Award for Best Comedy. In hopes of becoming an actor, he made an acting debut in “National Velvet” in 1946 and began in 1948 as a student at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. Even with advance voice coaching, his voice became his problem with acting as it was described as “Tweedy.” This led to him being a stage manager and understudy at the Whitehall Theater or the first two years of “Reluctant Heroes,” a weekly rep, and Whitehall Farce. Upon returning to Brian Rix's Company, he wrote his first play, “Dry Rot,” comedy about a crooked bookie. In 2000 a list of the Top 100 Staged Performances was published by the Royal National Theater with his first play “Dry Rot” was on the list. Although his parents were not theatrical, his father's parents were well-known performers at the Carl Rosa Opera Company, his uncle Edward Chapman was a well-known actor, and his aunt Caroline Chapman was a theatrical agent. He was married to Whitehall actress Betty Impey and the couple had four sons. He died from cancer. According to his obituary, “Since 'Dry Rot,' there has never been a time when one of his plays is not being staged in Europe or somewhere around the world. Not bad for an who left RADA with a Tweedy voice and no diploma.”