Wood, David (England, UK)

David Wood OBE (born 21 February 1944 in Sutton, Surrey, England) is an English-born actor and writer, called "the National Children's Dramatist" by The Times.

Wood has been actor, composer, producer, director, lyric writer, magician, author and playwright. Wood is a leading writer and director of plays and musicals for children, with a host of successes to his name, including Fantastic Mr Fox, BFG, The See-Saw Tree, The Twits, The Witches, Noddy, Meg and Mog, Spot, Rupert the Bear and Babe the Sheep Pig. His most famous story, The Gingerbread Man, has been all around the world since it was first performed at London’s Old Vic in 1977.

Among his film roles are Johnny in Lindsay Anderson's If.... (1968) and Thompson in Aces High (1976). He appeared as the character Bingo Little in the original London cast of the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Alan Ayckbourn musical Jeeves in 1975.

He was the writer of the screenplay of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons, released by Anglo EMI Ltd (1974).

He was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2004 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to literature and drama