Bob Spiers
| Bob Spiers | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Robert Alexander Spiers 27 September 1945 Glasgow, Scotland, UK |
| Died | 8 December 2008 (aged 63) Devon, England, UK |
| Occupation | Television director |
Robert Alexander "Bob" Spiers (27 September 1945 – 8 December 2008) was a director. He is particularly noted as the director of the early series of Absolutely Fabulous (1992–2001), the musical comedy Spiceworld, and of the second series of Fawlty Towers (1979). He also worked with Steven Moffat on Press Gang and Joking Apart. Spiers won a BAFTA Award twice for his work as a television comedy director.
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, he attended Southgate College in the 1960s. "Jock", as he was affectionately known at the time, organised several student trips from the college to mainland Europe, including Brussels and Cologne, during this period. Spiers joined the staff of the BBC in 1970, working as an assistant floor manager and later a production assistant, before eventually working his way up to become a director and producer. In this capacity he worked on several high-profile programmes, such as Dad's Army, Are You Being Served? and It Ain't Half Hot Mum, all sitcoms, a genre with which he became particularly associated. During the 1970s he met his wife, Annie.
It was because of his talent for directing comedy that he was chosen to handle the second series of Fawlty Towers in 1979, which already had an enormous reputation on the basis of its initial six episodes in 1975, and it won him his first BAFTA award. Spiers subsequently provided a commentary for all the episodes he directed of Fawlty Towers when the series was released on DVD. Shortly after he directed the series and the unbroadcast pilot of Not the Nine O'Clock News, Spiers left the staff of the BBC to work as a freelance director.
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