Keith Dewhust (b. Oldham, 1931) has been a yarn tester in a cotton mill, a football journalist, a TV presenter, an arts columnist for the Guardian, writer in residence at Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, and a member of the production board of the British Film Institute. Of his eighteen stage plays, six, including Lark Rise to Candleford, were premiered by the National Theatre and three by the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre. His extensive TV work includes a further eighteen plays and many episodes for series, including the original Z-Cars, The Edwardians, Fall of Eagles, Van der Valk and Casualty. In cinema he scripted The Empty Beach and with David Leland co-wrote Land Girls. He has published two novels and his latest play, King Arthur, was produced by Shapeshifter Productions at the Arcola Theatre, London in 2006.