Martin Dennis

Biography

Martin Dennis is a Canadian-born award-winning British television director specialising in situation comedy. He won the BAFTA for situation comedy in 2005, having been nominated in 1989, 1996, and 1998. Dennis was born in Toronto and lived there briefly until his family moved to Surrey. He graduated from the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of Birmingham alongside his fellow and now well-known award-winning contemporaries - stage and screen directors Phyllida Lloyd and Andy Wilson, producer Sarah Curtis, actor and director Owen Brenman and stage and screen designer Mark Thompson. Stage and screen writer-directors Victoria Wood and Terry Johnson had graduated from the Department in preceding years. Dennis joined the BBC in 1980 as a runner. He soon became a production manager and was part of the crew behind 'Allo, 'Allo, Don't Wait Up, and Hi-De-Hi. In 1980, Dennis became the director of 'Allo, 'Allo and in 1991 he directed the first series of Men Behaving Badly for Hartswood Films, and went on to direct all the subsequent series and specials. He has also directed Birds of a Feather when it was revived by ITV in 2014.