• MA (Honours); University of Glasgow
• PhD; University of Kent

I’m from the West of Scotland originally, and I was one of the first people from my family to get in to university. I graduated from Glasgow in 1985 with a degree in English and Drama (coming first in my honours drama class) and went on to do a PhD at the University of Kent (my research topic was the funding of alternative theatre in the UK in the 1980s).

My first full time post was at the University of Ulster (from 1992 to 1997). I moved to the University of Greenwich, where I taught from 1997 to 2001. My most recent post was at the University of Chester, from 2001 to 2017.

I lead the third year study option Playwright’s Theatre and I convene the second year Monologue practical option. I teach on the second year Politics of Performance module, and I lecture on the first year Dramatic Medium module.

• Samuel Beckett.
• Contemporary British theatre and performance.
• Performance and popular culture.

I’ve got a long-standing interest in the work of Samuel Beckett. I’ve published a book, book chapters and articles on all aspects of his work, and I’ve been asked to speak on his work to academic and non-academic audiences. I was part of the 3-year AHRC Staging Beckett research project; as part of the project, we put together a database which gathered together information about all of the productions of Beckett in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

I’ve also published a book- the first on the subject- on rock music as a performance event, and I’ve co-edited books on the music and art of Kraftwerk and Brian Eno. I’ve also published on British theatre and performance, from the 1950s through to the present day; I’m an acknowledged expert on the work of the Scots playwright David Greig. 

Books

• The Velvet Underground (co-edited with Sean Albiez: Continuum; in preparation)
• The Theatre of David Hare (Contracted to Methuen: delivery date 2019)
• Kraftwerk (co-written with Sean Albiez) London: Reaktion (in preparation: delivery date 2017)
• Brian Eno: Oblique Music (co-edited with Sean Albiez) New York: Continuum 2016
• Modern British Playwriting: the 50s: Voices, Documents, New Interpretations London: Methuen 2012
• Kraftwerk: Music Non Stop (co-edited with Sean Albiez, New York: Continuum 2011
• Rock Music and Performance, Palgrave 2007.
• The Complete Critical Guide to Samuel Beckett, London: Routledge, 2000 (republished as Samuel Beckett, London: Routledge 2004)

Edited journal editions

• ‘Staging Beckett at the Margins’ Co-edited edition (with Anna McMullan), Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui, SBTA 30, 2017
• ‘Beckett on TV’: special edition of the Journal of Beckett Studies, co-edited with Ulrika Maude, Vol 18, nos 1-2 (2009)

Chapters/articles

• ‘Terence Rattigan and the Body in Society’ for Terence Rattigan, ed Dan Rebellato, (in preparation, publication date tbc)
• ‘Rock and Performance Analysis’, in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Rock Music Research, ed: Allan F. Moore, Bloomsbury, (in preparation, publication date 2018).
• ‘Power and Control in Beckett’s Theatre and Prose’ Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui 32 (in preparation, publication date 2018)
• ‘The Stuff of Performance: Beckett, Marginalia and Theatre Programming’ in Samuel Beckett Today/Aujuourd’hui SBTA 30 (2017)
• ‘7:84’, in British Theatre Companies: 1965-1979, ed John Bull, Methuen (2016).
• ‘Popular Culture’ (review chapter), in Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Studies, OUP (2016)
• ‘Let What Happens, Happen: The Whitelaw Archive’ Journal of Beckett Studies Vol 25 no 2 (2016)
• ‘David Bowie: Blackstar’ in Contemporary Theatre Review Vol 26, no 2 (2016)
• ‘The Events: Immanence and the Audience’, Journal of Contemporary Drama in English Vol 4 No 1, (2016)
• ‘The Bogus Men: Eno, Ferry, and Roxy Music’ in Brian Eno: Oblique Music New York: Continuum (2016)
• ‘Taking The Studio by Strategy’, in Brian Eno: Oblique Music New York: Continuum (2016)
• ‘Dissolving into Scotland: National Identity in Dunsinane and The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart,’ in Contemporary Theatre Review, Vol 26: Issue 1 (2016)
• ‘The Arrival of Godot’, in Staging Beckett in the UK, ed. David Tucker, Methuen (2016).
• ‘Stone Tapes: Ghost Box, Nostalgia and Post-War England’, in Music and Virtuality, eds Whiteley, Sheila and Rambaran, Shara, Oxford University Press (2016)
• ‘Popular Music (review chapter)’ Year’s Work in Creative and Critical Studies, OUP (2015)
• ‘Popular Culture (review chapter)’ Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Studies, OUP (2014) Staging Beckett: Constructing Performance Histories’, (with Anna McMullan, Trish McTighe and David Tucker), Journal of Beckett Studies, vol 23:1 (2014)
• ‘A Beautiful, Evil Thing: the Music of Nick Cave; in The Art of Nick Cave, ed John Baker, Intellect (2013) (reworked as sleeve notes for Nick Cave compilation album Lovely Creatures, 2017)
• ‘Popular Culture (review chapter)’ Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Studies, OUP (2013)
• David Greig and Scotland’ in Methuen Modern Critical Companions: David Greig author/editor Wallace, Clare London: Methuen (2013)
• ‘The Lessons of Lanark: Iain Banks, Alisdair Gray, and the Scottish Political Novel’, in The Transgressive Iain Banks: Essays on a Writer Beyond Borders, eds Colebrook, Martyn, Cox, Katherine, MacFarland & Co (2013).
• ‘Kraftwerk: Playing the Machines’, in Kraftwerk: Music Non-Stop New York: Continuum (2011).
• ‘Whatever Happened to Stop and Smell the Roses?; The Sopranos as Anti-Therapeutic Narrative,’ in The Essential Sopranos Reader, ed. David Lavery, University of Kentucky Press (2011).
• ‘Scotland and Anywhere: the plays of David Grieg’, in Cosmotopia: Transnational Identities in David Greig's Theatre eds Anja Muller and Clare Wallace, Litteraria Praegesia (2011).
• ‘Gregory Burke’ in The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary British Playwrights, eds Aleks Sierz, Martin Middeke, Peter Paul Schnierer, Methuen (2011).
• ‘A Parallax View of Nick Cave,’ in Eroticism and Death in Performance, ed. Karoline Gritzner, University of Hertfordshire Press (2010).
• ‘Beckett and Obsessional Ireland,’ in A Companion to Samuel Beckett, ed. S.E. Gontarski, Oxford: Blackwell (2010).
• ‘Writing the Ruins: Beckett and Benjamin’, in The Irish Knot: Essays on Imaginary/Real Ireland, ed María José Carrera, Anunciación Carrera, Enrique Cámara, Celsa Dapía, Secretariado de Publicaciones. Universidad de Valladolid (2008).
• ‘Feeding Power: Harold Pinter, Bakhtin, and Inverted Carnival,’ in Harold Pinter: Dialogues, ed. Mary Brewer, Rodopi Press (2009).
• ‘Coming Out of the Dark: Beckett’s TV work’, in Journal of Beckett Studies, Vol 19 no1-2 (2009).
• ‘Writing the Ruins: Beckett and Benjamin’, in The Irish Knot: Essays on Imaginary/Real Ireland, ed María José Carrera, Anunciación Carrera, Enrique Cámara, Celsa Dapía, Secretariado de Publicaciones. Universidad de Valladolid, (2008).
• ‘British theatre since 1968’ in A Companion to British and Irish Drama, ed Mary Luckhurst. Blackwell (2006).
• ‘Beckett and Bibliography.’ in Palgrave Guide to Beckett Studies. Lois Oppenheim (ed) Palgrave (2004).
• Bibliography, Palgrave Guide to Beckett Studies. Lois Oppenheim (ed) Palgrave (2004).
• ‘Mobbed Up: The Sopranos and the Modern Gangster Movie.’ in This Thing of Ours: Investigating the Sopranos. David Lavery (ed) Colombia University Press (2002).
• ‘The Decentring of Docherty: The Scotsman in Modern Scottish Drama’, International Journal of Scottish Theatre, Vol 1 no 2 December (2000)
• ‘Space, Time and Beckett’s Late Stages’. Modern Drama Vol 43 no 3 (Fall 2000)
• ‘4 Real: Authenticity, Performance and Rock Music’, Enculturation Vol 2 no2, Spring 1999
• ‘The Common Good: The Hare Trilogy’, Modern Drama, Vol 42 no 2 (1999; reprinted in Drama Criticism, vol 26, McGraw Hill 2005)
• ‘Modern Drama’, Introducing Literary Studies, Richard Bradford (ed) London: Harvester Wheatsheaf (1996).
• ‘Scottish Literature’, Introducing Literary Studies, Richard Bradford (ed), London: Harvester Wheatsheaf (1996).