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How Seeing Plays Helped My English Degree

Starting my English Degree at the University of Nottingham, a course in which you are thoroughly taken out of your comfort zone if you expect anything resembling a ‘dry degree’, nothing terrified me more than one looming module: Drama, Theatre and Performance. There is something uniquely evil in taking a shy student and forcing them …

Romeo and Juliet at The Theatre Royal

This blog was written by final year English student, Jade Braham. The Theatre Royal hosted the Royal Shakespeare Company’s recent adaptation of William Shakespeare’s timeless love story Romeo and Juliet. Despite being more than 400 years since Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, Director Erica Whyman has managed to transform this classic into a fresh and …

The Madness of George III at the Nottingham Playhouse

This blog was written by final year English student, Jade Braham. Under Adam Penford’s ingenious direction Alan Bennett’s masterpiece The Madness of George III finally hit the Nottingham Playhouse’s stage. Set in 1788, it follows the journey of the king who, having reigned from 1760, finds his life and the Nation’s stability threatened by his …

Just a Gigolo

A few years ago I wrote a play called EMPTY BED BLUES about D.H.  Lawrence and his wife, Frieda, which centred around the “true” – if somewhat controversial – story that Lady Chatterley’s Lover was inspired by Lawrence’s painful discovery of his wife’s love affair with Angelo Ravagli, their gardener in a rented villa in …

Out of the Shadow of Shakespeare

Shakespeare casts a long shadow. Particularly in this Olympic year, he’s absolutely everywhere – in a new exhibition at the British Museum, in the World Shakespeare Festival of performances taking place around the country (which I’ll be revisiting in my next post), and even during the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics themselves, which is based …

Distance Learning Summer School 2012

25-29th June 2012 More than 20 students, including those from both our on-site and distance learning programmes, participated in this year’s Summer School. It was a great experience for everyone involved. It was the perfect opportunity for the distance learning students to meet their tutors and other students, share experiences and expand their knowledge about …

Double Falsehood: Shakespeare’s ‘Lost Play’

On Monday 11 October 2010, Nottingham Playhouse hosted ‘Lost Shakespeare Day‘ showcasing the first public reading of the Jacobean play ‘Double Falsehood’. Professor Brean Hammond, Professor of Modern English Literature in the School of English, has been working for 10 years to prove that a play presented at Drury Lane in December 1727 contains the …

Sir Richard Eyre: The Art of Directing

After receiving an honorary doctorate from the University in 2008 Sir Richard Eyre, former director of the Nottingham Playhouse and Royal National Theatre, returned to the School of English on Saturday 8 November 2008 to work with second year students studying with the Drama section. As well as a lecture on the art of directing …