Denis Alfred Peter Philp (10 November 1920 - 5 February 2006), was a Welsh dramatist and antiques expert, best known for his television series, Collectors' Club.

Philp was born in Cardiff

Cardiff

Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...

, and attended Penarth

Penarth

Penarth is a town and seaside resort in the Vale of Glamorgan , Wales, 5.2 miles south west from the city centre of the Welsh capital city of Cardiff and lying on the north shore of the Severn Estuary at the southern end of Cardiff Bay...

 grammar school

Stanwell School

Stanwell School is a co-educational foundation status comprehensive school and Sixth form college located in Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales for children aged between eleven and eighteen...

, but opted to enter the family antiques business, A. T. Philp & Sons, instead of going to university. The premises were in Cardiff's Royal Arcade, where they remained until 1968. He served in the RAF during the Second World War, and married Pamela Ayton in 1940. They had two sons. In the meantime, he continued to write plays, as he had done since his schooldays, and his major success was Castle of Deception (1951); this won him the title of Most Promising Young Playwright at the Edinburgh Festival

Edinburgh Festival

The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...

. He lived for a time near Monmouth

Monmouth

Monmouth is a town in southeast Wales and traditional county town of the historic county of Monmouthshire. It is situated close to the border with England, where the River Monnow meets the River Wye with bridges over both....

, but later returned to Cardiff. In 1958, the first programme in the series, Collectors' Club, was shown on television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

, and Philp also wrote a column on antiques for The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

. He published several books on the subject of antiques.

Non-fiction

• Furniture of the World (1974)
• The Antique Furniture Expert (1991)
• Field Guide to Antique Furniture (1992)

Plays

• Castle of Deception (1951)
• A Quiet Clap of Thunder (1961)