Spiers worked on many sitcoms, including Dad's Army and Are You Being Served?, and won two British Academy Television Awards for Fawlty Towers and Absolutely Fabulous.
[2] 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.
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.
Throughout the 1980s, he worked on a number of programmes, of particular note being Channel 4's anthology comedy series The Comic Strip Presents... and the BBC sketch shows French and Saunders and A Bit of Fry and Laurie.
He began his association with writer Steven Moffat in 1989, directing over half of the episodes of the teen comedy drama series Press Gang (1989–1993) for the ITV network.
He had been working in America on the Disney film That Darn Cat at the peak of the Spice Girls' popularity, and was unaware of the group when first offered the job of directing Spiceworld until friend Jennifer Saunders advised that he take it.