Dr David Pattie MA, PhD

Department of Drama and Theatre Arts
Senior Lecturer

Contact details

Telephone: +44 (0)121 414
Email: d.pattie@bham.ac.uk

Address: The Old Library (SOVAC)
998 Bristol Road
Selly Oak
Birmingham
B29 6LG

I've been teaching and researching in drama and theatre studies since 1992. I’m an internationally recognised expert on the work of Samuel Beckett, and I’ve published ground breaking work on live music as a performance. I’ve also written extensively about contemporary British theatre, Scottish theatre, and popular culture.

Qualifications

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

Biography

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.

Teaching

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.

Postgraduate supervision

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

Find out more - our PhD Drama and Theatre Studies page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Research

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.

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Pattie, D & Albiez, S (eds) 2022, The Velvet Underground: What Goes On. 1 edn, Bloomsbury, New York. <https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/velvet-underground-9781501338410/>

Pattie, D & Stewart, P (eds) 2019, Pop Beckett: Intersections with Popular Culture. ibidem-Verlag, Stuttgart.

Article

Pattie, D 2018, '‘At me too someone is looking...’: Coercive Systems in Beckett’s Theatre.', Samuel Beckett Today - Aujourd hui, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 227-238. https://doi.org/10.1163/18757405-03002004

Pattie, D 2017, 'The Stuff of Performance: Beckett, Theatre Marginalia, and the Archive', Samuel Beckett Today - Aujourd hui, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 231-242. https://doi.org/10.1163/18757405-02902002

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Pattie, D 2025, Atopia: Dennis Kelly, modernity, and community. in J Bolton & N Holden (eds), Beautiful Doom: The Work of Dennis Kelly on stage and screen. 1st edn, Manchester University Press, Manchester, pp. 184-199.

Pattie, D 2025, The New Jerusalem: Genesis and Englishness. in C Anderton & L Burns (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Progressive Rock, Metal, and the Literary Imagination. vol. 1, Routledge Music Handbooks, Routledge, pp. 349-357.

Pattie, D 2023, Rattigan and Physical Action. in A Feldman & D Rebellato (eds), Terrence Rattigan: New Critical Perspectives. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Pattie, D 2022, Cluster/ Harmonia. in U Schütte (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Krautrock. Cambridge Companions, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 173-186. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009036535.012

Pattie, D 2022, Fields in England: Contemporary English Drama and the Countryside. in C Wallace, C Escoda, E Monforte & R Prado-Perez (eds), Crisis, Representation and Resilience: Perspectives on Contemporary British Theatre. Methuen, London, pp. 109-125. <https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/crisis-representation-and-resilience-9781350180857/>

Pattie, D 2022, Planet Floyd: The Evolution of Pink Floyd's Live Performances. in S Morrison & C Hart (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Pink Floyd. Routledge, London, pp. 111-125. <https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Pink-Floyd/Hart-Morrison/p/book/9780367338275>

Pattie, D 2021, Blurring the Modern: Neu!, Kraftwerk, Gerhard Richter and Motorik. in U Schutte (ed.), German Pop Music in Literary and Transmedial Perspectives. Studies in Modern German and Austrian Literature, vol. 11, Peter Lang, Berlin, pp. 15-33. https://doi.org/10.3726/b16291

Pattie, D 2016, 7:84 Theatre Companies. in J Bull (ed.), British Theatre Companies: 1965-1979: British Theatre Companies: from Fringe to Mainstream. Methuen, London, pp. 251-274.

Book/Film/Article review

Pattie, D 2022, 'Mark Brown. Modernism and Scottish Theatre since 1969: A Revolution on Stage. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, xvii + 254 pp., € 80.24 (hardback), € 24.99 (softcover)', Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 259-260. https://doi.org/10.1515/jcde-2022-0019

Foreword/postscript

Pattie, D 2021, Introduction. in Girls and Boys. Methuen Drama Modern Classics, Methuen, London, pp. 1-7. <https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/girls-and-boys-9781350200692/>

Pattie, D 2021, Introduction. in Dennis Kelly: Girls and Boys. Methuen Drama Modern Classics, Methuen, London, pp. 1-9.

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