David Wood began writing as a student at Oxford University in the sixties. He wrote his first play for children in 1967 and has since written about 50 more. They are performed all over the world and include The Gingerbread Man, The See-Saw Tree, The Plotters of Cabbage Patch Corner, Save the Human (from the story he wrote with Tony Husband) and The Selfish Shellfish. He has directed many of his plays for his touring company, Whirligig Theatre. His stage adaptations include five Roald Dahl booksÑThe BFG; The Witches; The Twits; Fantastic Mr. Fox and James and the Giant Peach; HRH the Prince of Wales' The Old Man of Lochnagar; Dick King-Smith's Babe, The Sheep-Pig; Eric Hill's Spot's Birthday Party and Michael Foreman's Dinosaurs and All That Rubbish. His adaptation of Philippa Pearce's Tom's Midnight Garden was commissioned by Unicorn Theatre and won the Theatre Managers' Association Best Show for Children and Young People in 2001, before playing a season on Broadway. Dubbed "The national children's dramatist" by The Times, he has recently published Theatre for Children: Guide to Writing, Adapting, Directing and Acting (Faber & Faber, and published by Ivan Dee in the States), which is already becoming a set text on the subject. Wood has also written screenplays including Swallows and Amazons (Arthur Ransome) and Back Home (Michelle Magorian), for which he was nominated for an Emmy. His children's books include The Phantom Cat of the Opera (Pavilion) and novelty books created with Richard Fowler including Bedtime Story and Funny Bunny's Magic Show (Transworld) and The Toy Cupboard (Pavilion). He presents The David Wood Magic and Music Show in theatres all over the U.K. As an actor he is best remembered as Johnny in Lindsay Anderson's cult film If…
