Judith E Wilson Lectures – 1957 to 2023

  Year Lecturer Title Drama/Poetry
1957-58 Sir Tyrone Guthrie The Illusion of Illusion D
1858-59 Mr Louis MacNeice Lyric into Drama D
1959-60 Mr Peter Hall The Actor’s Use of his Text D
1960-61 Dr Glynne Wickham Poets, Dramatists and Playmakers D/P
1961-62 Dr Denis Donoghue Modern Drama and the Life of Dialogue D
1962-63 Mr John Barton The Modern Actor and the Speaking of Shakespeare’s Verse D/P
1963-64 Mr Robert Speaight Shakespeare’s use of Soliloquy P
1964-65 Mr John Arden The Didactic Drama D
1965-66 Mr E Martin Browne
(assisted by Henzie Raeburn)
The making of T S Eliot’s The Cocktail Party (with readings) D/P
1966-67 Miss Ann Jellicoe Some Unconscious Influences in the Theatre D
1967-68 Mr Tony Church The Return of the Actor-Manager D
1968-69 Mr Bamber Gascoinge Some Seventeenth-Century Spectaculars D
1969-70 Dame Edith Evans A Poetry Reading P
1970-71 M Jean Jacquot ‘What’s Hecuba to us?’ P
1971-72 Mr Terry Hands Shakespeare: The Word and the Stage D
1972-73 Prof Joseph Kerman Opera as Drama D
1973-74 Mr Tony Robertson A Play’s the Thing D
1974-75 Mr C Walter Hodges Virtuous Fabrick: an argument for re-constructing the Globe Playhouse D
1975-76 Mr Edward Bond How to Write Something D
1976-77 Prof J R Northam ‘On a firm foundation’ – translating Ibsen D
1977-78 Mr Trevor Griffiths Writing for and against Television D
1978-79 Miss Jane Howell Towards a Popular Theatre D
1978-79 Mr Seamus Heaney A Near Myth: Reflections on the Irish Literary Revival D/P
1979-80 Mr Prof Geoffrey Hill ‘What Devil has got into John Ransom’ P
1980-81 Prof Dr Robert Weimann Comic Versions of Utopia in
Shakespeare
D/P
1980-81 Rev R S Thomas Man & Poet P
1980-81 Mr Jon Silkin Isaac Rosenberg: the particularist
East-West
P
1981-82 Mr B Trukan Some Aspects of Teaching Theatre East-West D
1981-82 Mr P Redgrove The Witch Who Loves Us: Peter Redgrove reads and reflects on his recent poetry. P
1982-83 Mr Michael Longley The Stereophonic Nightmare. D
1983-84 Mr Mike Alfreds What the theatre isn’t: getting down to basics. D
1983-84 Prof E Morgan Recyclilng, Mosaic and Collage in Poetry P
1984-85 Prof Andrew Gurr Shakespeare’s Globe: audiences then and now. D
1984-85 Dr Sorley Maclean Extremes in Scottish Gaelic Poetry P
1985-86 Mr Michael Pennington The Interim is Mine D
1985-86 Mr James Fenton Poets, War Poets and War P
1986-87 Mr John Lahr Clowning and Revenge D
1986-87 Mr A Thwaite Using the past: Contemporary poets and History P
1987-88 Mr John Willet Brecht at the End of the Century D
1987-88 Mr Douglas Dunn Language and Liberty: Scottish Poets in the Twentieth Century P
1988-89 Mr Michael Schmidt The Common Reader P
1988-89 Prof Muriel Bradbrook The Rose Theatre D
1989-90 No Judith E Wilson Lectures
1990-91 Prof Seamus Deane Slouching Towards Bethlehem, reading Modernist poems P
1990-91 Mr John Peter Plato, the text, and the overnight critic D
1991-92 Griff Rhys Jones Playing Comedy D
1991-92 Prof Donald Davie Poetry and Christian Doctrine P
1992-93 Prof C Middleton On the Mental Image P
1993-94 Mr Tom Phillips The Writing on the Wall D/P
1994-95 Mr Douglas Oliver Poetry’s Subject A Commentary and Performance P
1994-95 Ms Fiona Shaw She who plays the King D
1995-96 Mr John Fuegi How to make women writers disappear: a user’s manual D
1996-97 Ms Janet Suzman South Africa in ‘Othello’ D
1997 Mr Ariel Dorfman From Santiago to Broadway – The Dilemmas of Writing Political Drama in a Globalized World. D
1998 Eaven Boland ‘The Lost Poet’ P
1999 No Judith E Wilson Lectures
2000 Nicholas Hytner What Makes Theatre Theatre D
2001-18 No Judith E Wilson Lectures
2019 David Edgar State of Play D
2020-22 No Judith E Wilson Lectures
2023 Claudia Rankine A poetry reading P