Dan Zeff

Dan Zeff is the director who helmed the 2006 Doctor Who story Love & Monsters. He has won a BAFTA three times.

Before Doctor Who
His directorial career started about 1994, with an entry to a Channel 4 film competition. This was soon followed by an busy eight years in which he was a dominant force in children's television. His 1996 adaptation of the Coping With book, Coping with Christmas, won a BAFTA Children's Award for Best Drama, and a regular BAFTA TV Award for Best (Fictional) Children's Programme. He also won a BAFTA Children's Award for the instructional programme, English Express.

About the turn of the 21st century, he moved to more adult television, often working in single-camera situation comedies. In 2001, he worked on a couple of projects with significant Doctor Who connections.

Zeff contributed to Linda Green, featuring Liza Tarbuck, Sean Gallagher, Claire Rushbrook, Bruno Langley and Daniel Ryan. Other Doctor Who personnel on the series included cinematographer Ernie Vincze, producer Phil Collinson, executive producer Jane Tranter, casting director Andy Pryor and editor Liana Del Giudice.

Zeffe helmed a couple of episodes of the second series of At Home with the Braithwaites, starring Peter Davison, Sarah Smart and Julie Graham. Just before his turn with Doctor Who, he directed the whole of the first series of The Worst Week of My Life, co-starring Dean Lennox Kelly.

After Doctor Who
Around and after his time on Love & Monsters, Zeff was the initial director on Ideal. He directed all of series 1 and 2 of that Johnny Vegas show.

In 2008, his miniseries Lost in Austen was transmitted on ITV. The series featured several Doctor Who actors, including Jemima Rooper, Alex Kingston, Florence Hoath, Hugh Bonneville, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Christina Cole, Lindsay Duncan and Michelle Duncan. Its production was designed by Michael Pickwoad.

In 2011, his episodes of Case Histories aired. it starred Paterson Joseph and Tom Goodman-Hill. In 2012, his series, starring Yasmin Paige, aired on BBC Three.