Geoffrey Sax

Who is Geoffrey Sax?

Geoffrey Sax is a British film and television director, who has worked on a variety of drama productions in both the UK and the United States.

He began his directing career in the late 1970s, initially working in comedy, directing episodes of a number of sketch shows such as Cannon and Ball and End of Part One. He made the move into directing drama in the early 1980s, working on episodes of popular BBC dramas such as Bergerac and Lovejoy.

Later in the decade he worked on ITV programmes such as Spitting Image and The New Statesman. In the early 1990s he worked for a time in America, directing TV Movies and miniseries for various networks there. His most noted production during this time was the BBC / Universal Studios / Fox Network TV movie version of the popular science-fiction series Doctor Who, screened in 1996 and starring Paul McGann as the Doctor.

In 1998 Sax returned to the UK. He helmed Lynda La Plante's adaptation of her own novel Killer Net that year, and later gained credits on Paul Abbott's acclaimed Clocking Off, a Red Production Company series for BBC One.

In 2001 he directed a modern-day adaptation of the story of Othello, produced by London Weekend Television for the ITV network and starring Eamonn Walker, Christopher Eccleston and Keeley Hawes. The adaptation was written by Andrew Davies, who Sax worked with again the following year when he directed Davies' adaptation of Sarah Waters' novel Tipping the Velvet for Sally Head Productions and BBC Two. This was not the only connection between the two productions: Keeley Hawes also co-starred in Tipping the Velvet, the lead in which was played by Rachael Stirling, who had a smaller role in Othello.