British Political Theatre and the Gothic Mode (2000-2022)

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Contemporary British political theatre, as this thesis will demonstrate, owes a largely unacknowledged debt to the Gothic tradition. This project will examine the significance of this debt through both explicit and covert uses of the Gothic in contemporary political theatre. I will focus upon contemporary Gothic works such as those by Martin McDonagh and Mike Bartlett, assessing how the Gothic is uniquely poised to resonate with contemporary political issues. These findings will be further examined against the workings of non-Gothic forms which use Gothic tropes like isolating social division, and fears of the other, to articulate their political views, forms such as comic satires, stage musicals, immersiveexperiences and verbatim theatre. The project will therefore comprise an evaluative study of the full potency and reach of Gothic theatre as a political form in Britain's current political climate.My thesis builds upon previous academic achievements, particularly my MA dissertation, which traces the Gothic through the work of British dramatists in the 1990s-particularly Sarah Kane and David Greig, whose 1994 play Europe is one of the key texts for this project. Comparing Greig to more contemporary texts like Bartlett's Albion and McDonagh's A Very, Very, Very Dark Matter, my research will bring to light the extent of Gothic influence in the rhetoric of contemporary political theatre. These findings will be supported by observations of live performance, practice-based workshops, and conversations and collaborations with contemporary dramatists, particularly through my contacts at the Leeds Playhouse and Leeds University's Workshop Theatre.Furthermore, by taking advantage of the extensive theatre facilities at the University of Birmingham, and using the expert guidance of Drs David Pattie and Fabio Camilletti (of Warwick University), I will support these investigations with the skills gained from my training in research through practice as an undergraduate my studies culminated in a practical dissertation that used Gothic modes of performance to explore the linguistic difficulty of representing rape trauma. I first explored these ideas during my international study year in California through the successful completion of an original research project which I was chosen to present to an audience of academics, after which I returned with a GPA of 3.96. For these achievements in undergraduate research, and for my highly-graded work in modules ranging from Apocalypse fiction, Opposition theatre and Posthumanism, I graduated from Leeds University at the top of my cohort, and was awarded the prestigious Sir Richard Graham Prize.