ONLINE LECTURE SERIES: Reading the Long 18th-Century Theatre World*
INVITATION
You are cordially invited to an international online lecture series featuring leading researchers exploring diverse facets of eighteenth-century British theatre—from the gaming tables and star culture of London to the vibrant strolling circuits of England’s remotest borders.
DATE: Saturday, November 7, 2026
FORMAT: Online Webinar (Zoom)
LANGUAGE: English (with bilingual Q&A)
ADMISSION: Free (Open to all researchers, students, and the public)
ACCESS: Visit this link to join us.
PROGRAMME SCHEDULE
18:00-18:50 (JST)
09:00-09:50 (BST)
Session 1
Speaker: Dr. James Harriman-Smith (Newcastle University)
Title: Gaming on Stage in the Early Eighteenth Century: Susanna Centlivre and her Contemporaries
Chair: Prof. Wataru Fukushi (Tohoku Gakuin University)
19:00-19:50 (JST)
10:00-10:50 (BST)
Session 2
Speaker: Ronan Paterson (Teesside University)
Title: Strollers and Circuits, Buildings and Barnstormers: England’s Remotest County as a Microcosm of the Georgian Theatre
Chair: Prof. Yukari Yoshihara (University of Tsukuba)
20:00-20:50 (JST)
11:00-11:50 (BST)
Session 3
Speaker: Prof. Pavel Drábek (University of Hull)
Title: From Actors’ Comedy to Theatre Celebrities: 18th-Century Stage and Star Actors
Chair: Prof. Ryuta Minami (Tokyo Keizai University)
Enquiry
Contact: Ryuta Minami [Email: r-minami(at)tku.ac.jp]
*This Webinar is supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Scientific (B) 23K25311.
Meeting ID: 88676964422
Pass code: 495436Abstracts and Biographies
ABSTRACTS
Session 1
SPEAKER: Dr James Harriman-Smith (Newcastle University)
TITLE: Gaming on Stage in the Early Eighteenth Century: Susanna Centlivre and her Contemporaries
ABSTRACT: Susanna Centlivre’s The Gamester (1705) contains a pivotal scene in which we watch the comedy’s characters play the dice game hazard. Many other early eighteenth-century dramas feature scenes of on-stage gaming, but none bring a game onto the stage for as long or with as much sophistication as Centlivre does. In this talk I offer a close reading of The Gamester, revealing how this enduringly popular drama successfully exploited the similarities and differences between the stage and the gaming house in order offer to its audiences the opportunity to be both vicarious game-players and critical theatregoers.
In making this argument, I set Centlivre’s work alongside other gaming scenes by her contemporary and predecessor playwrights, from William Shakespeare’s Tempest (1611) through John Dryden’s Wild Gallant (1669) and on to Colley Cibber’s Lady’s Last Stake (1708). I also develop a set of literary critical approaches that draw on concepts from both theatre studies and games studies. Using this context and these approaches, I intend to outline a more speculative claim: that the activities of the theatre and the gaming house were, in the early 1700s, not just kinds of play, but also activities that simultaneously suffer and co-opt new kinds of rational Enlightenment critique.
About the SPEAKER: James Harriman-Smith is a senior lecturer in Restoration and eighteenth-century literature at Newcastle University. He has published two books on the theatre of the long eighteenth century. Criticism, Performance and the Passions (CUP, 2021) examined the role of transition in creating some of the period’s most powerful emotional spectacles. What Would Garrick Do? (Bloomsbury, 2024) brought the acting theory and practice of the 1700s into dialogue with contemporary theatre training and was shortlisted for the 2024 Theatre Book Prize. He is currently working on the intersection between gaming and performance in the eighteenth century and beyond.
Session 2
SPEAKER: Ronan Paterson (Teesside University)
TITLE: Strollers and Circuits, Buildings and Barnstormers: England’s Remotest County as a Microcosm of the Georgian Theatre
ABSTRACT: Much exploration of the English theatre in the Long 18th Century has understandably focused on the great stars in the London firmament, the great theatres and the famous figures who dominated the society in the capital. But across Britain there were actors and managers who were presenting theatre the length and breadth of the kingdom, keeping alive earlier traditions, but also forging new ones. For decades strolling players tramped the highways and byways, in carriages or wagons in periods of prosperity, on foot in times of hardship, playing where they could to whomsoever they could assemble, scraping a living as best they were able. This activity was not merely noticeable but actually vigorous in even the most remote corners of the country, and there is no part of the country more remote than Northumberland.
The furthest north point in England, sparsely populated, almost forgotten, the county was yet a hotbed of theatrical activity, Ranging from the grandly-announced “Theatre” in the tiniest villages, the barns, tents, assembly rooms and eventually purpose-built playhouses, this is a story of how actors sought out audiences with great tenacity , performing, entertaining and exciting a population primarily consisting of farmers and fisher-folk, then miners and merchants, keeping the flame (or at least the tallow candle) of Art alight. Even in the tiny communities of Northumberland, every kind of theatre was seen. This presentation takes the county as a microcosm of the rich panoply of 18th century theatre.
About the SPEAKER: Ronan Paterson spent many years as an actor and director, including several years as a strolling player himself, before becoming a theatre and film academic. He has taught in universities, conservatoires and colleges all over the UK, and is a frequent speaker at international conferences. He has published widely on a wide range of theatrical and cinematic historical subjects, on performance and film making, to groups ranging from drama workshops in a Young Offenders’ Institution to masterclasses for producers and directors at China Central Television, the world’s largest TV station.
He first moved to Northumberland forty years ago to run a touring theatre company, fell in love with it, and has lived there ever since.
Session 3
SPEAKER: Pavel Drábek
TITLE: From Actors’ Comedy to Theatre Celebrities: 18th-century stage and star actors ABSTRACT: The London stage of the long 18th century increasingly became a space for star actors: from Thomas Betterton, Elizabeth Barry and Ann Bracegirdle, through Colley Cibber, to David Garrick and Kitty Clive. This talk focuses on the actors’ comedy as a dramatic form that established itself as the leading medium of the theatre industry, one that necessarily eludes literary history because actors’ comedy cannot be narrowed down to a genre or fictional modality. In so doing, the talk attempts to glimpse at the social energies that circulated in the theatre and gave it such wide popularity.
About the SPEAKER: Pavel Drábek is theatre historian, theorist and practitioner, specialising in Shakespeare, early modern theatre, opera, transcultural performance and translation. He is Emeritus Professor of Drama and Theatre Practice, University of Hull, UK; Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Hradec Králové; and theatre researcher at the Czech Cultural Institute, Prague, Czech Republic. He is also a playwright, librettist and translator. With Hana Pavelková, he wrote Spanilá jízda (The Grand Ride, produced in 2026), based on actors’ comedies of the long 18th century. From that period he has also translated Cibber’s Love’s Last Shift (1696), Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer (1706) and others.