[3] He subsequently studied theatre at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, beginning at age 18.
There, he was accidentally assigned as director of a student production of Gustav Holst's The Wandering Scholar.
[3] Whilst at the Royal Scottish Academy, Blakeley had worked with David McVicar on the latter's production of Handel's Semele.
[5] In 2001, Blakeley directed the first dramatic staging of Handel's cantata Clori, Tirst e Fileno, at the gay nightclub Heaven in London.
[6] At the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, Blakeley directed the French premiere of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music (2010), and subsequent productions of Sondheim's Sweeney Todd (2011), and of Sunday in the Park with George (2013), and Into the Woods (2014), The King and I (2014).