Basil Herbert Dean CBE (27 September 1888 – 22 April 1978) was an English actor, writer, producer and director in the theatre and in cinema.

He staged premieres of plays by writers including J. M. Barrie, Noël Coward, John Galsworthy, Harley Granville-Barker and Somerset Maugham.

[1] According to his entry in Who's Who in the Theatre he was originally intended for a career in the diplomatic service,[2] but he trained as an "analytical scientist" before working for two years on the London Stock Exchange.

That year he became the first director of the Liverpool Repertory Theatre (later the Playhouse), where he put on plays by John Galsworthy, Harold Brighouse, and Harley Granville-Barker.

[3] After the war Dean launched himself as a producer in London, forming a syndicate, Reandean, with a business partner, Alec Lionel Rea.

They leased the St Martin's Theatre, and after a poor start, with two failures, they achieved a strong success with Galsworthy's tragi-comedy The Skin Game.

[2] Another conspicuous success was The Constant Nymph (1926) by Margaret Kennedy, but Dean's handling of the casting was an example of the bullying and ruthlessness that made him many enemies in the theatrical profession.

For a while his films did well, particularly those starring Gracie Fields, but his flair for theatrical staging did not extend to the cinema, where his work as director was uninspired: the biographer Alan Strachan writes, "most of his films are inert with next to no rhythm or comedic flair",[11] and Fields's biographer David Bret writes that Dean was "positively renowned for his complete lack of sense of humour".

[12] In the late 1930s, Dean fell out with Ealing Studios, where his colleagues felt that he was neglecting films in favour of his theatrical work; he was obliged to resign.

[13] Dean ignored his critics and formed an alliance with the comedian and theatre owner Leslie Henson, who had been a leading figure in entertainments for the troops in the First World War.

[16] Dean's biographer James Roose-Evans writes, "during six and a half years more than 80 per cent of the entertainments industry gave [ENSA] service in innumerable performances of plays, revues, and concerts".

B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls for the Old Vic company at its temporary home at the New Theatre in October 1946 and The Wizard of Oz for the Christmas season of 1946–47.

[18] His productions overseas included Hassan for the National Theatre Organisation of South Africa (1950) and for Dublin International Drama Festival (1960) and Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter, Boston (1950).