Research interests
My primary research interest is in the field of British popular entertainment forms and how they may be applied and recognized in contemporary culture. I specialize in both primary and action research into itinerant entertainers (e.g. pierrot concert parties, peepshows, fairground sideshows) and the transference of that knowledge to as wide an audience as possible, using every available platform: this includes a substantial number of nationally broadcast radio series (these form the publication basis of my PhD thesis), television programmes, augmented reality applications, conference papers & speeches, as well as public performances and exhibitions.
Recently, I was the lead artist for Kate Newey & Jim Davis’ AHRC follow-on funding project looking at Theatre and Visual Culture in the Nineteenth Century.
I am currently working with Dr Alissa Mello on her ‘Judy Project’ – a three-year transhistorical study of women practitioners, female gender and its representations in Punch and Judy from the 18th century to the present day, with funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska- Curie grant agreement No 101020076 and the Society for Theatre Research and the University of Exeter’s Public Engagement with Research fund. It is being implemented at the University of Exeter’s Drama Department.
I am always interested in commissions and collections which inform my research and welcome any such enquiries.
