Terence Frisby obit

Terence Frisby, actor and playwright who made his name with ‘There’s a Girl in My Soup’ – obituary

His look at the Swinging Sixties was for a few years the longest-running comedy in West End history, but he struggled to repeat its success 

He was not on the list.

The actor and playwright Terence Frisby, who has died aged 87, wrote There’s a Girl in My Soup, the longest running comedy in the history of the West End until it was overtaken by Ray Cooney’s Run for Your Wife; it opened at the Globe in 1966 starring Donald Sinden as a middle-aged celebrity chef embroiled in a swinging 60s tug-of-love triangle with the young girlfriend (played memorably by Barbara Ferris) of a middle-class hippy, and closed at the Comedy more than six years later.

The social significance of the piece was entirely traduced in the 1970 movie version starring Peter Sellers and Goldie Hawn, but Frisby had written a “play for today” that its producer, Michael Codron, champion of Harold Pinter, Alan Ayckbourn and Simon Gray, defined as a “bridge play” between the old world of theatre and the new (this was the play that made his whole West End operation commercially viable). Sinden took the play’s famous “chat up” catchphrase, “My God, but you’re lovely”, and improvised, repeating it as his own epitaph, alone with his looking glass, as the curtain fell.

Frisby was born in 1932 in New Cross, south-east London, the second son of William Frisby, who worked on the railways, and Kathleen (née Campbell), who was employed in a department store. He was educated at Dartford Grammar School leaving aged 16 becoming a tailor's apprentice. He remained in the occupation for six years before gaining a place at the Central School of Speech and Drama and training to become an actor. He worked in repertory theatre under the name Terence Holland from 1957 to 1966. Under his stage name, he was also a presenter on the BBC's children's series Play School during the 1960s.

There's a Girl in My Soup opened in 1966 at the Globe Theatre (now called the Gielgud Theatre) and ran for over 1,000 performances, before transferring to the Comedy Theatre for a further three years. It was a worldwide hit with runs on Broadway, Paris (with Gérard Depardieu), Madrid (with Concha Velasco), Berlin, Stockholm, Sydney, Rome (starring Domenico Modugno), Vienna, Prague and elsewhere. His script for the 1970 film, which starred Peter Sellers and Goldie Hawn, won the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award in 1970 for the Best British Comedy Screenplay.

His other stage plays include The Subtopians (Arts Theatre 1964), The Bandwagon (Mermaid Theatre 1969), It's All Right If I Do It (Mermaid 1977), Seaside Postcard (Young Vic 1978), Rough Justice (Apollo Theatre 1994), and Funny About Love (two UK national tours 1999–2000). All his plays are published by Samuel French. The first performance of The Subtopians was in fact at the Guildford Theatre in the week of 26 March 1962. The second production, which transferred to the Arts Theatre in the West End in 1964, was directed by himself at Bromley Repertory Theatre, where he was working as a member of the rep company

Frisby also wrote many plays for television, two of which were nominated for awards. His comedy series include Lucky Feller (1976) with David Jason (1976) and That's Love (1988–92) with Jimmy Mulville, Diana Hardcastle, and Tony Slattery, which won the Gold Award for Comedy at the 1991 Houston International Film Festival.

His radio play Just Remember Two Things: It's Not Fair And Don't Be Late for BBC Radio 4 won The Giles Cooper Award. A musical stage version was produced at the Queen's Theatre, Barnstaple in 2004 under the title Just Remember Two Things... A second production of the same show, under the title Kisses on a Postcard, was produced in 2011 at the same venue.

Frisby's book, Outrageous Fortune (1998), is an autobiographical account addressed to his son, Dominic Frisby, about his fifteen years as a litigant-in-person in the High Court following his divorce in 1971 from the model Christine Doppelt and his custody claim involving their son, who is now an author and comedian. Terence Frisby's second book is Kisses on a Postcard, published by Bloomsbury.(ISBN 9781408800584). It tells of his experiences as an evacuee as a 7-year-old from London to Cornwall during World War Two. It is based on the musical of the same name.

Frisby worked for over 50 years as an actor, director and producer. He played leads and directed in the West End, at the Young Vic and elsewhere in the UK. A presentation as a producer was the South African, multi-award-winning Woza Albert! at the Criterion Theatre in 1984. It was subsequently performed off-Broadway and worldwide.

Frisby was a founder member of the father's rights and support group Families Need Fathers, but became distant from the group terming it "Nippers Need Nutters". He died in April 2020, aged 87, from the side effects of treatment three years earlier for bladder cancer, which he did not have.

Writer

The Firm

Short

co-writer

2012

 

That's Love (1988)

That's Love

7.4

TV Series

writer

1988–1992

26 episodes

 

Peter Armitage, Cheryl Hall, and David Jason in Lucky Feller (1975)

Lucky Feller

7.0

TV Series

by

written by

1975–1976

14 episodes

 

There's a Girl in My Soup (1970)

There's a Girl in My Soup

5.7

based on his stage play of the same name

screenplay

1970

 

Armchair Theatre (1956)

Armchair Theatre

7.5

TV Series

writer

1967

1 episode

 

Gerald Harper in Adam Adamant Lives! (1966)

Adam Adamant Lives!

7.0

TV Series

by

1966

1 episode

 

Diane Cilento in Blackmail (1965)

Blackmail

7.4

TV Series

writer

1965

1 episode

 

Alfred Burke in Public Eye (1965)

Public Eye

8.5

TV Series

writer

1965

2 episodes

 

John Gregson in First Night (1963)

First Night

8.3

TV Series

writer

1963

1 episode

 

Actor

That's Love (1988)

That's Love

7.4

TV Series

Reg

1992

2 episodes

 

A Strike Out of Time (1990)

A Strike Out of Time

TV Movie

Ned Smith

1990

 

The Madness Museum

6.7

TV Movie

Adam Turner

1986

 

Robin Chadwick, Richard Easton, and Patrick O'Connell in The Brothers (1972)

The Brothers

7.5

TV Series

Simon Winter

1976

3 episodes

 

Play for Today (1970)

Play for Today

7.8

TV Series

Raymond Boswell

1974

1 episode

 

Sporting Scenes (1973)

Sporting Scenes

TV Series

Medwin

1974

1 episode

 

Wessex Tales (1973)

Wessex Tales

7.1

TV Mini Series

Charles Downe

1973

1 episode

 

Play School (1964)

Play School

7.0

TV Series

King (as Terence Holland)

1965

1 episode

 

Detective (1964)

Detective

7.6

TV Series

Jordan (as Terence Holland)

1964

1 episode

 

Emergency-Ward 10 (1957)

Emergency-Ward 10

6.2

TV Series

Reg Bell (as Terence Holland)

1962

3 episodes

 

Carry on Cruising (1962)

Carry on Cruising

6.1

Passenger (as Terence Holland)

1962

 

Roommates (1961)

Roommates

5.9

1st Trombone (as Terence Holland)

1961