[3] In 2003 Blair served as a visiting professor at Stockton teaching a course on researching real world issues to a group of final year cross disciplinary students.
During his time at Al Jazeera he commissioned and executive produced a range of one-off documentaries and series as well as creating new talk show formats.
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian described Dancing with the Devil as "horribly fascinating",[5] it portrays the bloody battle between drug lords and police in Rio de Janeiro where more than 1000 people die each year.
[6] In August 2007 Blair completed Murder Most Foul a 75-minute feature documentary for More 4 about crime in South Africa with the ex-South African Shakespearean actor, Sir Antony Sher.
In 2005 Jon made two one-hour drama documentaries for Discovery Networks Europe in the Zero Hour series, about the Oklahoma bomb and the plot to kill Pope John Paul II.
The production starred Julie Covington, Brian Cox, Kenneth Cranham, Daniel Day-Lewis, Trevor Eve, Alan Howard, Anna Massey, Diana Quick, Zoe Wanamaker, and others.
Other productions included an early example of a formatted documentary, Thighs, Lies & Beauty, an investigation of the myths and reality surrounding the beauty business for BBC1; The Art of Tripping, a 2-hour dramatised documentary for Channel Four on drug taking and the arts starring Bernard Hill; a Frontline (Channel Four) current affairs film featuring the story of South African Jann Turner whose father was assassinated in front of her when she was 13, and as an adult returns to South Africa to look at the arguments for revenge versus reconciliation in the new South Africa; Steven Spielberg on "Schindler's List" and Tom Hanks & The World According to Gump, both for the BBC; and Wagner vs Wagner, for Channel Four, featuring Richard Wagner's great grandson on the composer's political and cultural legacy of antisemitism and race hatred.
In 1991 Blair produced and his company made the feature film, Monster in a Box, Spalding Gray's sequel to his earlier work, Swimming to Cambodia.
The film, directed by documentarian Nick Broomfield, and distributed in the US by Fineline Features consists of a long-form monologue by Gray detailing the trials and tribulations he encountered when writing his eponymous first novel.
The film achieved the ultimate accolade of being parodied on Sesame Street as an instalment of Monsterpiece Theater, with the main actor and writer aptly called Spalding Monster in a homage to Gray.
[7] Blair produced Dunrulin' for BBC1, a satirical comedy based on his own idea featuring the Thatcher family in retirement starring Angela Thorne and John Wells.
Blair directed the play-off Broadway in New York, starring Fritz Weaver and Philip Bosco, where it received considerable critical acclaim and ran for four months.
"[9] A version of the play with an all-black cast was staged in Nigeria in 1979 directed by and starring the writer, poet, playwright and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka.