Judith E Wilson Lectures – 1957 to 2023

1957-58

  • Lecturer: Sir Tyrone Guthrie
  • Title: The Illusion of Illusion
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1858-59

  • Lecturer: Mr Louis MacNeice
  • Title: Lyric into Drama
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1959-60

  • Lecturer: Mr Peter Hall
  • Title: The Actor’s Use of his Text
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1960-61

  • Lecturer: Dr Glynne Wickham
  • Title: Poets, Dramatists and Playmakers
  • Drama/Poetry: D/P

1961-62

  • Lecturer: Dr Denis Donoghue
  • Title: Modern Drama and the Life of Dialogue
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1962-63

  • Lecturer: Mr John Barton
  • Title: The Modern Actor and the Speaking of Shakespeare’s Verse
  • Drama/Poetry: D/P

1963-64

  • Lecturer: Mr Robert Speaight
  • Title: Shakespeare’s use of Soliloquy
  • Drama/Poetry: P

1964-65

  • Lecturer: Mr John Arden
  • Title: The Didactic Drama
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1965-66

  • Lecturer: Mr E Martin Browne (assisted by Henzie Raeburn)
  • Title: The making of T S Eliot’s The Cocktail Party (with readings)
  • Drama/Poetry: D/P

1966-67

  • Lecturer: Miss Ann Jellicoe
  • Title: Some Unconscious Influences in the Theatre
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1967-68

  • Lecturer: Mr Tony Church
  • Title: The Return of the Actor-Manager
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1968-69

  • Lecturer: Mr Bamber Gascoinge
  • Title: Some Seventeenth-Century Spectaculars
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1969-70

  • Lecturer: Dame Edith Evans
  • Title: A Poetry Reading
  • Drama/Poetry: P

1970-71

  • Lecturer: M Jean Jacquot
  • Title: ‘What’s Hecuba to us?’
  • Drama/Poetry: P

1971-72

  • Lecturer: Mr Terry Hands
  • Title: Shakespeare: The Word and the Stage
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1972-73

  • Lecturer: Prof Joseph Kerman
  • Title: Opera as Drama
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1973-74

  • Lecturer: Mr Tony Robertson
  • Title: A Play’s the Thing
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1974-75

  • Lecturer: Mr C Walter Hodges
  • Title: Virtuous Fabrick: an argument for re-constructing the Globe Playhouse
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1975-76

  • Lecturer: Mr Edward Bond
  • Title: How to Write Something
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1976-77

  • Lecturer: Prof J R Northam
  • Title: ‘On a firm foundation’ – translating Ibsen
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1977-78

  • Lecturer: Mr Trevor Griffiths
  • Title: Writing for and against Television
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1978-79

  • Lecturer: Miss Jane Howell
  • Title: Towards a Popular Theatre
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1978-79

  • Lecturer: Mr Seamus Heaney
  • Title: A Near Myth: Reflections on the Irish Literary Revival
  • Drama/Poetry: D/P

1979-80

  • Lecturer: Mr Prof Geoffrey Hill
  • Title: ‘What Devil has got into John Ransom’
  • Drama/Poetry: P

1980-81

  • Lecturer: Prof Dr Robert Weimann
  • Title: Comic Versions of Utopia in Shakespeare
  • Drama/Poetry: D/P

1980-81

  • Lecturer: Rev R S Thomas
  • Title: Man & Poet
  • Drama/Poetry: P

1980-81

  • Lecturer: Mr Jon Silkin
  • Title: Isaac Rosenberg: the particularist East-West
  • Drama/Poetry: P

1981-82

  • Lecturer: Mr B Trukan
  • Title: Some Aspects of Teaching Theatre East-West
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1981-82

  • Lecturer: Mr P Redgrove
  • Title: The Witch Who Loves Us: Peter Redgrove reads and reflects on his recent poetry.
  • Drama/Poetry: P

1982-83

  • Lecturer: Mr Michael Longley
  • Title: The Stereophonic Nightmare
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1983-84

  • Lecturer: Mr Mike Alfreds
  • Title: What the theatre isn’t: getting down to basics
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1983-84

  • Lecturer: Prof E Morgan
  • Title: Recyclilng, Mosaic and Collage in Poetry
  • Drama/Poetry: P

1984-85

  • Lecturer: Prof Andrew Gurr
  • Title: Shakespeare’s Globe: audiences then and now.
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1984-85

  • Lecturer: Dr Sorley Maclean
  • Title: Extremes in Scottish Gaelic Poetry
  • Drama/Poetry: P

1985-86

  • Lecturer: Mr Michael Pennington
  • Title: The Interim is Mine
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1985-86

  • Lecturer: Mr James Fenton
  • Title: Poets, War Poets and War
  • Drama/Poetry: P

1986-87

  • Lecturer: Mr John Lahr
  • Title: Clowning and Revenge
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1986-87

  • Lecturer: Mr A Thwaite
  • Title: Using the past: Contemporary poets and History
  • Drama/Poetry: P

1987-88

  • Lecturer: Mr John Willet
  • Title: Brecht at the End of the Century
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1987-88

  • Lecturer: Mr Douglas Dunn
  • Title: Language and Liberty: Scottish Poets in the Twentieth Century
  • Drama/Poetry: P

1988-89

  • Lecturer: Mr Michael Schmidt
  • Title: The Common Reader
  • Drama/Poetry: P

1988-89

  • Lecturer: Prof Muriel Bradbrook
  • Title: The Rose Theatre
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1989-90

  • Lecturer: No Judith E Wilson Lectures

1990-91

  • Lecturer: Prof Seamus Deane
  • Title: Slouching Towards Bethlehem, reading Modernist poems
  • Drama/Poetry: P

1990-91

  • Lecturer: Mr John Peter
  • Title: Plato, the text, and the overnight critic
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1991-92

  • Lecturer: Griff Rhys Jones
  • Title: Playing Comedy
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1991-92

  • Lecturer: Prof Donald Davie
  • Title: Poetry and Christian Doctrine
  • Drama/Poetry: P

1992-93

  • Lecturer: Prof C Middleton
  • Title: On the Mental Image
  • Drama/Poetry: P

1993-94

  • Lecturer: Mr Tom Phillips
  • Title: The Writing on the Wall
  • Drama/Poetry: D/P

1994-95

  • Lecturer: Mr Douglas Oliver
  • Title: Poetry’s Subject A Commentary and Performance
  • Drama/Poetry: P

1994-95

  • Lecturer: Ms Fiona Shaw
  • Title: She who plays the King
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1995-96

  • Lecturer: Mr John Fuegi
  • Title: How to make women writers disappear: a user’s manual
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1996-97

  • Lecturer: Ms Janet Suzman
  • Title: South Africa in ‘Othello’
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1997

  • Lecturer: Mr Ariel Dorfman
  • Title: From Santiago to Broadway – The Dilemmas of Writing Political Drama in a Globalized World.
  • Drama/Poetry: D

1998

  • Lecturer: Eaven Boland
  • Title: ‘The Lost Poet’
  • Drama/Poetry: P

1999

  • Lecturer: No Judith E Wilson Lectures

2000

  • Lecturer: Nicholas Hytner
  • Title: What Makes Theatre Theatre
  • Drama/Poetry: D

2001-18

  • Lecturer: No Judith E Wilson Lectures

2019

  • Lecturer: David Edgar
  • Title: State of Play
  • Drama/Poetry: D

2020-22

  • Lecturer: No Judith E Wilson Lectures

2023

  • Lecturer: Claudia Rankine
  • Title: A poetry reading
  • Drama/Poetry: P