Speakers: Dr Chris Hogg (Sheffield Hallam University) and Dr Tom Cantrell (University of York)

Dr Christopher Hogg is Lecturer in Media and Communication at Sheffield Hallam University. He specialises in the study of British television drama, with particular research interests in television production processes, international televisual flows and cultural values, and television performance.

Dr Tom Cantrell is Lecturer in Theatre at the University of York. He has particular research interests in actor training and performance processes, and has contributed key publications to scholarship in the area of verbatim theatre.

Title: Playing the Small Screen: British Actor Training and Television Performance

Despite British TV drama’s origins reflecting a strong sense of artistic inheritance from the stage, TV has generated unique dramatic structures of its own. Such structures have shifted away from the finite frameworks of the traditional ‘single play’ to adopt more expansive and indeterminate forms. Such evolution complicates the processes of actors working in TV, particularly their approaches to the logic and coherency of character. Despite the emergence of such unique demands upon actors working within TV drama, both pedagogical and critical discourses addressing the ways in which actors prepare for and understand their roles has maintained a focus upon theatre and (to a lesser extent) film, largely with the omission of TV. Therefore, it is evident that there exists a gap in both practical knowledge and theoretical understanding regarding the methods of TV actors.