David Roberts

• Teaching MA Creative Non-Fiction, MA Texts in Transition and Research Methods, BA Moral Philosophy, BA Collaborative Practice.
• Working on various projects in Restoration/Eighteenth-Century Theatre and Prose.
• Essays forthcoming in The Palgrave Encyclopaedia of Urban Literatures and The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare in Music.

• British Theatre, 1600-1737
• Life Writing
• The Early English Novel

• BA (Hons) 1st class, University of Bristol
• DPhil (Faculty of English Language and Literature), University of Oxford

• Fellow of the English Association
• National Teaching Fellow
• Trustee of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Mid-Wales Opera, and the Birmingham Hippodrome

• MA Creative Non-Fiction
• MA Texts in Transition and Research Methods
• BA Moral Philosophy
• BA Collaborative Practice.

Currently working on a new edition of An Apology for the Life of Mr Colley Cibber, an essay on Daniel Defoe and London, and a novel about Titus Oates.

I welcome applications from students working on theatre from 1600 to 1737, on text editing, or on life writing.

‘Living with Ghosts: Shakespeare, Beethoven and Wagner’, forthcoming in Mervyn Cooke and Christopher Wilson, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare in Music (OUP, 2021)

‘Shakespeare and Terrorism’, in Jonathan Harris, ed., Terrorism and Art (Routledge, 2020)

‘Colley Cibber and Winchester College’ (with Suzanne Foster), Notes and Queries, September 2020

Ed.,.William Congreve, The Way of the World (Methuen, 2020)

‘Beethoven and Shakespeare: Ghosts and Heroes’, The Cambridge Quarterly (June 2019)

Hippodrome 120 (Birmingham Hippodrome, 2019)

‘The Path to Woolf Works and the Language of Design: an Interview with Ravi Deepres’, New Theatre Quarterly (August 2019)

‘Annotating Defoe: the case of A Journal of the Plague Year’, Modern Language Review (September 2019)

George Farquhar: A Migrant Life Reversed (Methuen, 2018)

Games for English Literature (with Izabela Hopkins) (Libri, 2016)

‘Writing the Ethical Life: Theatrical Biography and the Case of Thomas Betterton’, in Claire Cochrane and Jo Robinson, eds., History and Historiography: Ethics, Evidence and Truth (Palgrave, 2016)

‘Shakespeare and the Jewellers’, The Cambridge Quarterly (June 2016) 

‘First Night in Bristol: 250^th Anniversary Reflections’, New Theatre Quarterly (August 2016) 

‘Chocolate Covered Broccoli? Games and the Teaching of English’ (with Izabela Hopkins), Changing English (May 2015)

‘Theatre Criticism’ and ‘Jeremy Collier’ in The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of British Literature, ed. Gary Day and Jack Lynch (Wiley-Blackwell, 2015 (Cambridge University Press, 2014)

Restoration Plays and Players (Cambridge University Press, 2014)

‘Hamlet on the English Stage, 1603-1709’, in Peter Marx, ed., Hamletbuch (Metzler, 2014)

Pinacotheca Bettertonaeana: The library of a seventeenth-century actor. (Society for Theatre Research, 2013)

‘Ranked among the best: Translation and Cultural Agency in Restoration Translations of French Drama’, Modern Language Review (June 2013) 

‘Thomas Killigrew, Theatre Manager’, in Philip Major, ed., Thomas Killigrew and the Seventeenth-century English Stage: New Perspectives (Ashgate, 2013)

Thomas Betterton: The Greatest Actor of the Restoration Stage (Cambridge University Press, 2010) 

Ed. (revised edition), Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year (Oxford University Press, 2010)

'Class and the Seventeenth-Century Actor,' Studies in Theatre and Performance (Summer 2010)

'"I think no ill one". A Letter from Thomas Betterton sheds new light on the Chandos Portrait', The Times Literary Supplement, 14 August 2009

'"Almost Impossible in Praise": Dedicatory Criticism in English Dramatic Texts, 1660-1700', 1650-1850: Critical Voices Special Issue (October 2008)

‘The 1695 Actors’ Rebellion: new light on old patentees’, Notes and Queries (December 2007)

‘Thomas Betterton, Private Tutor’, Notes and Queries (March 2007)

'Thomas Betterton, Bookseller's Apprentice', The Review of English Studies (November 2007)

‘Sleeping Beauties: Shakespeare, Sleep and the Stage’, The Cambridge Quarterly (September 2006)

'Sir Fopling in the Mall', Notes and Queries (September 2003)

'As rude as you like – honest: Theatre Criticism and the Law', New Theatre Quarterly (August 2003)

'Caesar's Gift: playing the park in the Seventeenth Century', ELH (June 2003) 

'Shakespeare, Theater Criticism and the Acting Tradition', Shakespeare Quarterly (Fall 2002)

'Two Shakespearian Allusions and the Date of Marvell's "A Nymph Complaining the Death of her Faun"', Notes and Queries (September 2002)

'Henry VIII and The True Chronicle History of King Leir', Notes and Queries (September 2001)

'Ravishing Strides: signs of the peripatetic on the seventeenth-century stage', New Theatre Quarterly (February 2001)

‘Making the Words Count: Towards an Analytic Database of Theatre Reviews’, New Theatre Quarterly (February 1999)

‘Donne, Geography, and the Hymn to God my God in My Sicknesse’, Notes and Queries (June 1999)

‘Shakespeare’s Fellows: Names and Collocations’, Cahiers Elisabethains (January 1999)

Careers Using English (with Margaret Clewett), (Taylor & Francis, 1998)

The Student’s Guide to Writing Essays (Taylor & Francis, 1998)

‘Towards a Study of Theatre Journalism’ Studies in Theatre Production (December 1997)

‘The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie: An Afternoon at the Bunraku Theatre’, Studies in Theatre Production (March 1997)

‘Old Hamlet and the Archbishop: a new allusion in Hamlet?’ Notes and Queries (June 1996)

Ed., Lord Chesterfield’s Letters (Oxford University Press, 1992)

Ed., Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year (Oxford University Press, 1990)

Ed., Daniel Defoe, Colonel Jack (Oxford University Press, 1989)

The Ladies: Female Patronage of Restoration Drama (Oxford University Press, 1989)

Creative Writing includes two novels, The Life of Harris the Actor (2015) and Plague Year (2020), and short stories in the anthologies Pen and Ink (2013), Lifelines (2016), Timelines (2017), Journeys (2018), and Borderlands (2019).

David has written numerous programme essays for The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, since 2008; also for the Bristol Old Vic, Birmingham Rep and Birmingham Royal Ballet. His ‘object’ book, Hippodrome 120, was commissioned by the theatre to celebrate its 120th anniversary in 2019 and takes 120 objects or moments from the theatre’s history. For radio David has been a guest contributor to Jude Kelly's BBC Radio 4 programme on Restoration actresses, for a BBC Radio 3 feature on fairy tales, and recorded interviews with BBC Hereford and Worcester, BBC Radio WM and Saga FM, Birmingham. He has published thought pieces in Times Higher Education and in the journal of the former HEA English Subject Centre, of which he was a board member. He also given pre-performance talks at theatres in Birmingham and Chichester.

As a Trustee of the Birmingham Rep, David has been closely involved in discussions about the theatre’s response to COVID-19. In July 2020 he chaired a West Midlands Growth Company symposium on post-pandemic recovery plans for the arts and tourism.

David is one of the University’s dedicated team of trained media champions, and can comment on a range of subjects including:

• Theatre
• The Arts
• Literature
• Opera

To arrange a media interview, please contact Birmingham City University Press Office on 0121 331 6738, 07967 271532,
email press@bcu.ac.uk or via Twitter @BCUPressOffice