Dan Zeff

Dan Zeff is the three-time BAFTA award winning director who helmed the 2006 Doctor Who story Love & Monsters.

Prior to Doctor Who
His directorial career appears to have started in about 1994, with an entry to a Channel 4 film competition. This was swiftly followed by an extremely 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.

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

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

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

After Doctor Who
Around and after his time on Love & Monsters, he was the initial director on Ideal, directing all of series 1 and 2 of that Johnny Vegas vehicle.

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

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