 The writer and actor Mark Gatiss , paying tribute to Kneale on the BBC News Online website shortly after his death , indicated that he was among the first rank of British television writers , but that this had been overlooked . " He is amongst the greats — he is absolutely as important as Dennis Potter , as David Mercer , as Alan Bleasdale , as Alan Bennett , but I think because of a strange snobbery about fantasy or sci @-@ fi it 's never quite been that way . " Similarly , his obituary in The Guardian commented that : 
