My research focuses on British theatre since 1968 and on the broader territory of ‘theatres of actuality’ around the world, ranging from nineteenth-century Naturalism to contemporary documentary theatre. I have recently compiled and introduced The Methuen Drama Book of Naturalist Plays (2010) and co-edited Get Real: Documentary Theatre Past and Present (Palgrave, 2009; paperback edition with new preface, 2011), which is the first book to critically investigate the global proliferation of documentary, 'verbatim' and tribunal theatres over the past two decades. 

My research on post-war theatre has focused on the 1960s and 1970s although I've written articles and book chapters on a broader range of topics, including theatre censorship, the Situationist influence on British playwriting, and theatrical responses to the Cold War and the war in Iraq. I've published widely on the generation of playwrights that emerged in the late 60s including Howard Brenton, David Edgar, David Hare and, especially, Howard Barker. My book Decades of Modern British Playwriting - the 1970s (Methuen Drama, 2012) includes fresh critical perspectives, archival documents, reminiscences from key theatre practitioners, and new interviews pertaining to the theatre of that complex, fascinating decade. Following on from this work, I'm currently writing two commissioned essays for edited collections - on the 'memory' plays of Harold Pinter in the 1970s, and the work and legacy of Portable Theatre (my research for the latter is focused on the Arts Council archives).

One of my emergent areas of research is the inter-relation of ethics and (what Carl Jung calls) the 'numinous' in contemporary writing for theatre. I'm interested in how recent theatrical performance has negotiated questions of belief and 'faith' in ways that reach beyond established ideological, secularist or religious discourses. I've been exploring the work of Lucy Prebble, Mike Bartlett, Dennis Kelly and David Greig (amongst others) and have written a 10,000-word chapter on this topic for Vicky Angelaki's forthcoming collection, Contemporary British Theatre: Breaking New Ground (Palgrave, 2013). My monograph on Sarah Kane (for Routledge) also articulates with these interests and will be completed in 2013.

I’m a member of Equity and have been involved in actors’ companies that specialise in the application of role-play techniques in training contexts, including in UK prisons. I also run workshops for students and professional actors - e.g. in 2008, supported by the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs and the Saison Foundation, I travelled to Tokyo to work with directors, actors and educators on Stanislavsky and Brecht. I am a Board member and trustee of Love&Madness, a wonderful touring company that specialises in the inventive reinterpretation of classic texts.

I’m a member of the Backpages editorial team for Contemporary Theatre Review, have reviewed regularly for many academic journals, and am currently External Examiner for theatre courses at Birkbeck College. I've recently been appointed to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Peer Review College, from 2012-15. 

I welcome enquiries from prospective research students who are interested in topics that articulate in some way with the areas outlined above. I've supervised or co-supervised a large number of PhD students to successful completion of their projects, a number of whom have since been appointed to university lectureships.

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