Arthur Baysting

Although better known as a songwriter and a spirited champion of New Zealand music, Arthur Baysting made a number of contributions to the screen. In the 1970s he was a scriptwriter on breakthrough dramas Winners & Losers and Sleeping Dogs, while his white-clad alter ego Neville Purvis graced both cabaret stages and a short-lived TV series. He passed away on 3 December 2019. 

He is a trained journalist, a much published poet, a stand-up comedian, a scriptwriter and the yoghurt man in the TV ad ... He also writes the material, for his own, his very own, creation — Neville Purvis, a sort of urban Fred Dagg, a cross between Dame Edna Everage and Ian Kirkpatrick, if you can imagine such a thing. Writer Tony Reid summarises the non-musical end of Arthur Baysting's career, The Listener, 25 February 1978, page 12