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Richard Michael "Kip" Carpenter was an English television screenwriter, author and actor who created a number of popular British television series, the best known internationally is probably Robin of Sherwood.
Born in King's Lynn, Norfolk, Carpenter attended the Old Vic Theatre School before starting an acting career by working in rep. He appeared in occasional films, but was mostly active on British TV in the 60s as a character player, on one occasion opposite Tony Hancock in one of his last shows for the BBC, commonly known as "The Bowmans".
In 1969, Carpenter created Catweazle, the children's series about an unfortunate wizard from the 11th century who is accidentally transported to the present-day. This changed the course of his career substantially. Carpenter earned international recognition and a Writers Guild award for creating cult children's TV series.
During the 1970s, he wrote the series The Ghosts of Motley Hall, Dick Turpin, parts of the series The Famous Five and Doctor Snuggles and seventeen episodes of The Adventures of Black Beauty for ITV companies; and Cloudburst, The Boy from Space and The King's Dragon as part of BBC's Look and Read programme for schools, some episodes of which he also presented.
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