David Blair

Director

Biography

David Blair is a British television director and film director. He has directed numerous television dramas, including Takin' Over the Asylum (1994), The Lakes (1997), and The Street (2006–2009). Blair's work is recognized for its depth and character-driven storytelling.

Filmography

6.0

Playhouse Presents

Playhouse Presents is a series of self-contained TV plays, made by British broadcaster Sky Arts. The series started airing on 12 April 2012, on Sky Arts 1. Each episode is written by a different writer with a different cast.

8.1

Accused

How certain people end up being accused of a crime.

6.0

The Play on One

A series of television plays, some original, some based on pre-existing plays or novels.

7.2

The Reckoning

The life of Jimmy Savile, a man who, for decades, became one of the UK’s most influential celebrities, but in death has become one of the most reviled figures of modern history following revelations of extensive and horrific abuse.

6.4

Crime

Detective Inspector Ray Lennox investigates the disappearance of a schoolgirl while battling cocaine addiction and a mental breakdown.

7.6

The Street

Anthology drama following the lives and passions of neighbors on a northern English street.

7.0

The Lakes

The Lakes is a mystery drama created and written by Jimmy McGovern for BBC1. The first series – comprised of four episodes – broadcast from 14 September to 5 October 1997. A second series of ten episodes ran from 10 January to 14 March 1999. Danny Kavanagh leaves Liverpool for the Lake District, finding work at a hotel and love with a local girl named Emma. Yet Danny remains an outsider in the close-knit community, and through the machinations of fate, he finds himself implicated in a tragedy. The secrets, lies, and crimes, of the seemingly tranquil community continue to be revealed.

N/A

Shockers

An anthology series of horror stories by contemporary British screenwriters.

8.4

Takin' Over the Asylum

A salesman starts to run a hospital radio station inside a facility for people with mental heath needs.

7.5

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

The story of Tess Durbeyfield, a low-born country girl whose family find they have noble connections.

6.5

Four Lives

The true story of the courageous families of four young gay men who lost their lives to killer Stephen Port. Facing police failings, they fought for justice for their loved ones.

7.0

The Time of Your Life

A 35-year-old woman awakens from an 18-year coma to an unfamiliar world and tries to make sense of a past her family and friends don’t want to dig up.

6.8

Anna Karenina

In Imperial Russia, Anna, wife of the officer Karenin, goes to Moscow to visit her brother. On the way, she meets charming cavalry officer Vronsky, to whom she's immediately attracted. But in St. Petersburg’s high society, a relationship like this could destroy a woman’s reputation. A four-part British television adaptation of Tolstoy's novel.

5.9

Hurricane

Polish pilots overcome prejudice to fight against the Luftwaffe with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, in the hope of protecting both Great Britain and their own Poland from the German advance.

6.2

Isolation Stories

A series of four short dramas depicting life in lockdown. Each episode will be 15 minutes in duration and will reflect what families are going through after weeks of isolation. The series will be filmed observing the strict rules of lockdown with actors and their families filming the scenes themselves watched remotely by the directors. Each of the directors — Paul Whittington, Paul Andrew Williams, Louise Hooper and David Blair — will be watching footage via their mobile phones and giving advice to the actors and their family members about camera positioning, scene composition and lighting as they record the scenes.

4.5

Malice Aforethought

Malice Aforethought is a 2005 ITV drama based on Anthony Berkeley Cox’s 1931 novel of the same name, made by Granada Television. There was an earlier BBC television adaptation of this novel in 1979. Dr. Edmund Bickleigh is married to a particularly overbearing woman who reminds him at every turn that he is living in her house. But the good doctor has outside interests to help him cope.

4.9

The Messenger

The Messenger is the story of Jack’s last melt down: a story of frustration and guilt, love and betrayal, family and blame. Unwillingly becoming embroiled in the unfinished business of Mark, a journalist brutally murdered in the local park and his television presenter wife, Sarah, to whom he’s desperate to say one last goodbye, Jack finds himself getting closer to Sarah, obsessed with passing on Mark’s message. Discovering hidden secrets and lies finally pushes the fragile Jack over the edge but there is hope when his estranged sister, Emma, gets in touch. Jack starts to remember the past they shared together and as the memories come flooding back, he confronts the truth about the death of his father.

4.3

Whatever Love Means

Strap in for a rollercoaster ride through the emotional worlds of love and royalty in an original WE Channel movie exploring the enduring, 30-year romance shared between Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles. Decades before the fairy tale wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana, the young prince and his longtime sweetheart found their growing love tragically clipped by the many demands of royalty and the sometimes rough waters of romance. Though he had previously exchanged vows with the glamorous Diana, Prince Charles never truly forgot about Parker-Bowles, and in this film Anglophiles and royalty scholars alike will finally learn the truth behind one of the highest profile romances in modern history.

N/A

Storm Witch

In the 17th century, long before modern science and in a time of great fear of the unknown, the villagers of a small coastal community find themselves drawn to, and suspicious of, Morag, a remarkable but mysterious woman who is uniquely connected to the nature that surrounds her. Survival is a daily and all-consuming struggle that is thinly forged from an inclement sea and pushed to the edge of the land by merciless feudal landowners. But it is Morag's passionate relationship with John Tullock, who is unwittingly pledged to marry Sinéad, that threatens to tear the community apart.

8.0

The Key

The story of three generations told against the backdrop of the 20th century. The drama focuses on the life of Mary Corrigan, from her days as a rebellious mill worker in 1915 and her doomed love affair for a man who must fight for his country, through to her final days in the run up to the British General Election of 1997.