I am an historian of nineteenth century British literature and culture, specialising in teaching and research in theatre history and women's writing. I have published on Frankenstein, Jane Austen, Victorian women playwrights, Fanny Kemble, Australian theatre, Victorian theatre and popular culture, John Ruskin, and Victorian pantomime and dance. I'm currently working with Professor Jim Davis on the AHRC-funded project ‘Theatre and Visual Culture in the Long Nineteenth-Century’

https://theatreandvisualculture19.wordpress.com/about-us/

You can read what I've written about pantomime for the TImes Literary Supplement here: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/satire-sex-adult-forces-shaped-pantomime/

Teaching

I have taught specialist courses in Women's Writing, Gender Studies, Melodrama, Women and Theatre, Theatre History and Historiography, and VIctorian Studies. I have also taught courses in Radical Theatre, Performance Analysis, and DIrecting. I contribute to a range of team-taught courses at FIrst and Second Year level, particularly in studio-based modules such as Staging the Text.

Supervision

I welcome enquiries for research supervision in:

Theatre history and historiography

Women's writing

Popular culture and popular entertainment

Victorian Studies

I am currently supervising several Doctoral research projects in theatre history topics. I have supervised Masters and PhD dissertations in theatre and Victorian studies topics, as well as practice-based research in contemporary performance and dance.

Other Professional Work

I am Chair of the Standing Conference of University Drama Departments (SCUDD), that national subject association for drama and theatre departments in UK universities.

Until 2014, I co-edited the journal Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film (Manchester University Press), and now serve on its Advisory Board.

I was a founding member of the British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS), and served on its Executive Committee for three years, as well as convening the annual BAVS conference in 2001: ‘Victorian Performances,’ and the 2011 Conference at the University of Birmingham

I was a founding member of the Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA), and served as Conference Secretary and General Secretary, from 2005 to 2015.

I have in the past been convenor of the Historiography Working Group of the International Federation of Theatre Research, and a judge for the Society for Theatre Research Book Prize.

I review grant applications for the European Research Council, Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Australian Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the Leverhulme Trust, and the Commonwealth Universities Scholarships scheme.

Biography:

I took Double Honours in English Literature and History, and then a PhD in English Literature at the University of Sydney. I taught in the English Department at Sydney, and as a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Wollongong. I returned to the UK to become Head of Department of Theatre Studies at Lancaster University in 1999, and took up the Chair of Drama and Theatre Arts at Birmingham in 2005.

I arrived at Exeter as Professor of Theatre History in 2012.