Theatre and English

Theatre and English is a degree that explores two of the most fundamental ways in which human beings make sense of experience: through performance and through literature. Theatre studies examines how stories are told through space, body, voice, and spectacle, investigating the history of performance from ancient drama to contemporary experimental work and developing your own creative and critical practice. English studies develops the close reading, interpretive, and analytical skills that literary texts demand, building your understanding of how language and form shape meaning across genres and periods.

At Brunel University London, this three-year full-time programme is both practical and academic, giving you the flexibility to follow your own interests across the two disciplines. You will study the history and theory of theatre alongside the practice of performance and devising, and you will read widely in English literature, developing the critical skills that allow you to analyse texts closely and situate them in their cultural and historical contexts. The combination develops your creative confidence alongside your intellectual rigour, and it encourages you to see connections between what you read and how it might be performed, interpreted, or reimagined in theatrical form.

Graduates from theatre and English programmes go on to careers in performance, theatre education, arts administration, directing, writing, publishing, journalism, and the cultural sector more broadly. The ability to communicate compellingly, both in writing and through creative practice, is valued across a wide range of professional contexts, and many graduates find careers in education, media, and the voluntary sector. Some go on to postgraduate training in acting, directing, or teaching, and others pursue academic careers in theatre or literary studies.