Dr. Richard Talbot
School of Arts and Media
New Adelphi 6.02
Please email for an appointment.
Current positions
Senior Lecturer in Performance. Programme Leader, BA (Hons) Comedy Writing and Performance
BIOGRAPHY
I joined the University of Salford in 2010 with a background as a theatre maker and performer. With Triangle Theatre I devised the award-winning museum performance project Whissell & Williams and have toured internationally, in repertory theatres (The 101 Dalmatians, Belgrade Theatre) and at the Edinburgh Festival (Looking for The Tallyman, The Singing Nun, På Genhør Med Nina og Frederik). Over the last 10 years I have collaborated with Ridiculusmus, winners of the Herald Archangel Award 2019, appearing in The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland, and working on Total Football, Goodbye Princess, How To Be Funny, and The Exhibitionists. This included performances at the Royal Court Theatre, National Theatre Studio, and on tour in Malawi for the British Council. Film and TV work includes Tribute (dir. Debbie Isitt) and Noble & Silver (Ch4). My AHRC funded PhD (2008) investigated clowning and archival practices after which I was the Leverhulme Trust Artist-in-Residence at Roehampton University working on the Olympiad related participatory project Knickers & Vests. I have been funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund to create performances as part of the First World War commemorations through to 2018. Through the Connected Communities project and UnLtd Social Enterprise I established a contemporary devised performance group for older people and received a British Academy/Leverhulme Trust award in 2016 to develop online clowning practices for older people, especially those living with a diagnosis of dementia. I am now researching the comedy of language learning, language labs and memory through the pop-up performance series, Café Delay in collaboration with groups in Sefton Borough, Liverpool and beyond.
Areas of research
Performance, Clowning, Dementia Care, Immersive Theatre
I am Programme Leader for the degree in Comedy Writing and Performance and my teaching activities cover Physical Comedy and Physical Theatres.
See footage here
I am also interested in ‘in-role’ teaching and I have taught Immersive Museum Performance methods at universities, and museums in the UK Northern Ireland, Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney and the National Trust.
Teaching and supervision for 2021/22:
MA Contemporary Performance Practice modules: Creative Interactions, Key Contexts and final Practice as Research Project supervision.
Undergraduate modules:
Theatre and Comedy Projects supervision Level 6
Research Portfolio/Practical Research supervision Level 6
Physical Theatres Level 5
Performance Studies Level 5
Performance in Context Level 4
I am currently supervising PhDs on Selfhood, Sexuality and Spirituality; and Dance and Digital Virtual Environments and Digital Performance.
I have supervised successful Practice-Research PhD projects on Northern Comic Identities and Place; Jean Luc-Nancy and the Ensemble; and The Gamification of Theatre, and a more ‘conventional’ PhD on Pinter and Psychoanalysis. I have recently examined Practice-Research PhDs on the Exploration of Mask/Clown and Pedagogy; and on Spontaneity and Repetition.
I have worked on numerous interdisciplinary projects with staff in the School of Health and Society at Salford University and including Modelling Interactive Clown Practices for Virtual Game Design Applications in Dementia Care, with the Salford Institute for Dementia. I have published critical analysis of Immersive Theatres and the work of Ridiculusmus and have chaired a number of public engagement events around their trilogy of work about mental illness with Sick! Manchester and Battersea Arts Centre
Qualifications
- BA (Hons) Japanese Studies, First Class (Sheffield, 1991);
- MA Theatre Studies with Distinction (Leeds, 1994);
- Postgraduate Certificate in Research Practice (Nottingham Trent, 2005);
- PhD Drama, Theatre & Performance (Roehampton, 2009).
- Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Practice and Research (Salford, 2011).
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (2011).
- Languages: Japanese (JPLT, N2), Arabic (OPI, Intermediate-Mid), French (CEFR, B2) , German (B2), Spanish (A2).
Memberships
- Associate Artist, Triangle Theatre Company
- Board member, Ridiculusmus
- Associate Artist, Pantheatre, France
- Theatre and Performance Research Association
- International Federation of Theatre Research