One may approach Simpson's style through a subtitle of his own: farce in a new dimension…. Farce as a descriptive term is associated with stereotyped flat characters, intricate improbable situations and a well developed sense of the ridiculous. Laughter is its most essential ingredient.

The dividing line between comedy and farce has never been clear. In N. F. Simpson the plot is the stage action, the characters are certainly one-dimensional, and the milieu is a fantasy world with parallels to our own. The fantasy is based on reality. To locate Simpson's particular brand of farce one must precisely describe the nature of that relationship. Simpson insists that his characters are ordinary people in an extraordinary situation…. Moreover, he believes the comic effect derives from this incongruity…. (p. 300)

The fact that he is self-consciously clever does not make it any easier to come to terms with Simpson's sense of...