During the course of this year, I am available to give invited talks at Departmental seminars, symposia and the like. My research is now developed enough to shed new light on the role of walking in theatre history, but still pliant enough to benefit from the input of scholarly conversation.

When somebody recalls Kuang's Babel to the University library and you're only 150 pages in.

In other news, I have 'Golden' from K Pop Demon Hunters firmly wedged inside my head.

The writing got more serious this week and I found myself thinking about strutting, stalking and jetting on the e.m. stage. Spoiler alert: they may appear to be the same sort of walking, but have crucial and productive differences as well as internal contradictions. Finding = context is everything!

Colleagues: My kid is learning about Henry VIII - behold his new portrait!

Someone needs to tell Andrew Tate that being angry doesn't make you look cool, it makes you look ridiculous.

Yesterday I received the thrilling news that my article 'Elite Masculinity and Early Modern Performances of Walking' was accepted for publication in @elrjournal.bsky.social - after a year of the most rigorous revisions I've ever faced, which the work is immeasurably better for. Happy weekend to all!

Today and tomorrow I meet two brand-new doctoral supervisees. Always one of the most exciting parts of an academic job. So excited to see how their projects develop, to learn from and with them, and so honoured that they chose me as, hopefully, a useful guide.

Just read this from Edward IV, Part One and reminded of our lovely 'patriots' right now: "You are those desperate, idle, swaggering mates, /That haunt the suburbs in the time of peace,/ And raise up alehouse brawls in street."

A new chair, a repurposed stool-for-table, and some ancient editions... Ready to commence play reading for the BA-funded monograph.

Musing on the irony that "ideology", the very term which Marx popularised to denote the false, intransigent, conservative belief systems which critical, radical thinking & action would free us from, is now weaponised AGAINST the Left. We apparently are the ideologists, the fixed thinkers. No, sir.

I'm going to have to stop doom scrolling so am sending love and solidarity to all of those people out there whose lives bear the real consequences of yesterday's march, and signing off.

September is beauty advent calendar unboxing month on YouTube and I'd like to give a little shout out to CosmetopiaDigest - the most sarcastic, cynical, world-weary and trustworthy beauty vlogger around.

Pretty momentous email to send just before lunch on a Monday morning. Second book appears to be...done! Watch this space for further news from me and @gregmw4.bsky.social as we approach publication.

Genuinely interested in yours, please share!

Top 5 Shakespeare productions/adaptations, GO! Here's mine 1. Cheek-by-Jowl's As You Like It 2. Deborah Warner's The Tempest 3. Kurosawa's Throne of Blood 4. Kozintsev's King Lear 5. Forced Ent's Tabletop Shakespeare I'm sad that the Donmar Trilogy narrowly missed the top 5, but I'm confident that

shorter King Lear:

Day 11 | 10/08/2025 Donate: chuffed.org/project/140162-global-sumud-flotilla-uk The Global Sumud Flotilla is a coordinated civilian fleet sailing to Gaza in August 2025 to break the illegal siege and demand an end to genocide. #GlobalMovementToGaza #SailToGaza #GlobalSumudFlotilla #BreakTheSiege

The blank pages at the back of books are for you to tear out and eat

- 400 jobs to go at Lancaster University - 1 in 4 people will be made redundant But where's the financial evidence for this extreme action? Please read 👇 Sign the petition 👇 chng.it/7F52bThYqn

Reflecting on changes to HE in last 20 years. Students could do with being regularly reminded that the etymology of essay is 'to try'. Too often they are expected to complete and polish ideas rather than to try them out - a luxury which seems to be confined to pre-fees programmes 1/2

Postdoctoral Research Associate (16th-18th century focus) - Inclusive Histories - Royal Holloway #skystorians 🗃️#earlymodern #c18th jobs.royalholloway.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

Look, I've found one use for chatgpt - using it to respond to passive aggressive emails over which you want to expend no further energy or time. Save yourself a 3am wake-up crafting inflammatory retorts!

This is amongst the most impactful two minutes of broadcasting I’ve ever seen. By Emma Murphy, International Editor, ITV News. #Gaza

Middle-class status alert! Trying to find a cleaner (cheaper than a divorce) and am now aware that some cleaners' hourly rates are higher than those of hourly-paid tutors in HE. What the actual??!

To add something lighter to the mix, we're also playing The Wise-woman of Hogston by Thomas Heywood, a city-comedy that orbits the wise-woman and her terrible cold reading skills which the community accept. For some reason. #comedy #CunningFolk www.ticketsource.co.uk/beyondshakes...

Absolutely fucking horrifying

chng.it/pW8fqXF8pv Lancaster is full of some of the most talented and committed scholars and friends I've ever had the pleasure of working with. Please sign.

Had a lot of fun talking to Cassidy Cash www.cassidycash.com mainly about Mrs Shakspaire, with an excursion to a desert island at the end. Apologies in advance to the seagulls.

Thinking of starting a Hot Tudors/Renaissance Instagram account in the mode of Hot Victorians. So far I've got: Leonardo da Vinci Christopher Marlowe Robert Devereux Walter Raleigh Caravaggio William Parr John Donne Robert Dudley Prince Rupert Albrecht Dürer Anyone else you'd like to objectify?!

Stages of academic writing. Drafting: These chapters are ok! >[3 mos] This book is awful >[6 mos] I think I might be a genius? >[3 mos] This'll do. 6 months after publication: I hate this piece it's awful I'm an imposter I hope no-one ever reads it 8 yrs after publication: I used to be a genius!

That fun 6 weeks of the year where you have kids at home and all of your research deadlines to meet! Yay!

What a review of my pal @jennashworth.bsky.social's book, and it's about walking! Can't wait to dig in. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

My brilliant colleague's new book reviewed in The Guardian 👇 Fabulous stuff as always @jennashworth.bsky.social ✊️ Thanks for letting us know @elencaldecott.bsky.social 😀 www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

My research assistant is rubbish. Where is HR... sorry CR?

Every day we balance our war free lives against the extreme cruelty happening in Gaza; we continue on as our leaders refuse to act tangibly against mass murder. Why? Because the victims are brown? Because of religious ideology? We are all witnesses here; we are all tainted by inaction.

The female gaze

Increasingly excited abt publication of my and @gregmw4.bsky.social's book 'Predramatic Theatre'! It offers a fresh, innovative account of the drama of the period prior to the building of the professional playhouses read in the light of modern theories of the dramatic and postdramatic theatres.

Thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with the brilliant Eleonore Ozanne as part of a @walklistencreate.org Walk Café the other week... You can catch up on our thoughts about night-walking, women, history, ritual, community and art here: youtu.be/QRQMBeBYqjw?...

www.thestage.co.uk/obituaries--... The incomparable @audioandrea.bsky.social on a neglected but essential aspect of theatre history.

Fantastic to see this final slide of the final keynote which sums up much of what #ESRA2025 (and indeed my paper, in relation to Richard II) has been concerned with.

I ate this, and I have witnesses: @starcrossed2018.bsky.social and @pascaleexeter.bsky.social. Still not sure how I feel about it as, I imagine, are they. #ESRA2025

Porto life #esra

Was going to wear my Tatty Devine Armada ship earrings to the European Shakespeare Research Association conference, then worried that might be a bit insensitive.

I demand my friends do this.

Lost my voice twice from shouting at people in crowded bars and restaurants 😂

Also such a social @srsrensoc.bsky.social - it was incredibly warm and enriching to see colleagues from across the sector, to commiserate and celebrate in equal measure, but I also met so many new people!

Wonderful few days @srsrensoc.bsky.social! So proud to show off Bristol to early modern colleagues. Highlights for me were the non-elite community and mobility panel with @profcatheriner.bsky.social @callanjd.bsky.social Vanessa Harding and Michael Powell-Davies as well as chairing a stonker of a

If @srsrensoc.bsky.social conference 2025 is your first conference, or if you feel at a loose end and are not sure who to speak to, feel free to come up and say hi if you see me. I'm very friendly and will probably say something stupid that will put you at ease.