Drama Literature Courses

Interested in spending time familiarising yourself with Shakespeare? Join this five-week course to explore his late play, The Winter’s Tale, taking it one act at a time.

We will read and discuss three classic plays: William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, Thomas Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy and Henrik Ibsen’s Rosmersholm. Focusing on aspects such as structure, language and tone, we will analyse how dramatists across time have explored themes such as family honour, sexual morality, gender politics and political leadership.

Come and explore three pioneering tragicomedies of the Jacobean period: Philaster (1608), Cymbeline (1610), and The Tempest (1611).

Combining elements of Romance, pastoral settings, comic plotting and tragic situations, Renaissance tragicomedy is known for its self-conscious hybridity, creativity, and mixed tonalities. We’ll look at how these authors placed courtiers and courtly debates about power and politics in unfamiliar settings, and used miraculous occurrences to enable them to investigate the equalising nature of love and the fortunate workings of providence.

Take a fresh look at Shakespeare, exploring selected plays in the company of an experienced theatre director. With performance in mind, we will examine the language and themes of two plays, and discuss the similarities and differences in their treatment of violence, guilt and pride.

Curious about studying Shakespeare and the importance of food in his plays? Join us for this in-person taster session to learn more about food in Shakespeare’s world and whet your appetite for further study!

Dr Bethan Davies has taught Literature and Cultural History for the past seven years, working as a lecturer in the Humanities at universities and schools across the UK. Bethan’s first book ‘Sugar and Gender in Early Modern Drama and Material Culture’ will be published by Bloomsbury (expected 2028). She has a MPhil and PhD in Renaissance Literature and Culture, and has worked as a researcher and content producer for the BBC, The National Archives, and Quarto Publications.

Come and explore the food of Shakespeare’s world. Shakespeare’s poems and plays are full of references to food, dining, hunger, and appetite. Far from trifling details, the food in Shakespeare’s works tell us a lot about the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods - what people ate, how they ate, the recipes and ingredients they used, where ingredients came from, how food was prepared, and by whom.

Dr Bethan Davies has taught Literature and Cultural History for the past seven years, working as a lecturer in the Humanities at universities and schools across the UK. Bethan’s first book ‘Sugar and Gender in Early Modern Drama and Material Culture’ will be published by Bloomsbury (expected 2028). She has a MPhil and PhD in Renaissance Literature and Culture, and has worked as a researcher and content producer for the BBC, The National Archives, and Quarto Publications.

In literature and journalism, written reportage steps back from the churn of constant, rapid news cycles to offer in-depth perspectives on important stories. It combines rigorous research and journalistic facts with literary devices-such as vivid scene descriptions, dialogue, and character development-to tell more detailed, considered stories that grip the reader and illuminate an event, person or place.

Macbeth and Othello are two of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. Their heroes are both murderers and husbands. Both are tortured by the thought of the crimes they commit, but in radically different ways. Macbeth is stung by his wife’s suggestion that he is not a man if he fails to kill his guest, King Duncan, and yet doing so makes him doubt his very humanity. Unlike Macbeth and his wife, Othello and Desdemona are in the blissful early days of wedlock: it takes a third party to poison that happiness, turning Othello from adoring husband to jealous monster.

Take a fresh look at Shakespeare, exploring selected plays in the company of an experienced theatre director. With performance in mind, we will examine the language and themes of two of Shakespeare’s comedies, and discuss the similarities and differences in their treatment of love and the relations between the sexes.

Spend three weeks exploring The Invention of Love, a dazzling play by one of Britain’s finest playwrights, the late Sir Tom Stoppard. The play’s cast features literary historical characters A.E. Houseman and Oscar Wilde, among others, as well as the mythical boatman Charon, who ferries souls across the river Styx after death.