Keith Boak

Episodes Broadcast: 2005

Biography

Keith Boak was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 1984 he graduated from the University of Bristol with a degree in law, but his career path soon took him into the theatre. Boak then worked as an assistant director at Riverside Studios, and began making short films. He soon moved into television, including an early assignment on DEF II where he worked with Russell T Davies. Boak was a director by 1993, initially on EastEnders. Other credits during the Nineties included The Bill, Pie In The Sky and Harbour Lights. After the turn of the century, he made episodes of shows like Holby City, Merseybeat and The Royal.

When Davies was tasked with reviving Doctor Who, he recruited Boak to direct the first set of episodes to be made for Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor: Rose and Aliens Of London / World War Three. Unfortunately, the shoot proved to be enormously trying, and some of the blame was laid at Boak's feet; he would not work on Doctor Who again. Instead, he went on to programmes such as Hotel Babylon, Casualty and Waterloo Road. In the 2010s, Boak directed for shows like Silent Witness, Death In Paradise and New Tricks. He moved to Hollywood, where his credits included the Superman prequel Krypton. Boak completed a masters degree in law at the University of California, Los Angeles, specialising in human rights. In addition to his television work, he also began practising as a public defender, and served as a case analyst for the California Innocence Project, a non-profit organisation which aimed to identify and exonerate the wrongly convicted.

Credits
Director
Rose
Aliens Of London / World War Three

Updated 13th August 2021