Program Overview

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English Literature and Theatre, Acting & Performance BA (Hons)

Overview

Studied in combination, English Literature and Theatre, Acting & Performance provide an opportunity to develop your practical experience of making and presenting theatre alongside wider academic study of plays and other literature. You’ll analyse prose and plays and use your in-depth understanding of their concepts and themes to shape your own performances.

The joint honours course combines theoretical and practical approaches to provide a comprehensive learning experience, supported by specialist staff with years of experience. Students graduate with a range of skills relevant to roles across multiple creative and communication industries.

Key Features

• Strong emphasis on the development of advanced literacy and communication skills
• Very stimulating and motivating course
• Theatre, Acting & Performance element predominantly taught in two state-of-the-art drama studios, fully equipped with lighting, sound, video and projection facilities
• Study diverse literatures emanating from the sixteenth through to the twenty-first centuries, encompassing both 'canonical' and 'marginal' texts
• Earn-as-You-Learn opportunities
• Opportunities to play an active role in local and regional literature festivals, related events and a work project module
• Tailor your course to your individual needs with a joint honours degree

Entry Requirements

• 104 UCAS Tariff points
• T Levels may be used to meet the entry tariff requirements for this course.
• If you have any questions about entry requirements, please contact the Admissions Office for advice.

Course Content

Our courses are informed by research and current developments in the discipline and feedback from students, external examiners and employers. Modules do therefore change periodically in the interests of keeping the course relevant and reflecting best practice.

Year 1

• Mandatory:
  • Devising and Physical Theatre
  • Plays in Performance
  • Literary Forms and Genres
  • Ways of Reading, Ways of Writing
  • Writing Worcester Past and Present

Year 2

• Mandatory:
  • Exploding the Canon: Literary Theory and Practice
  • Acting for Stage, Screen & Media
• Optional:
  • Directed Public Performance
  • Creative Movement Practices
  • Applied Theatre Practices
  • Performance & Digital Media
  • Playwriting
  • Musical Theatre
  • Movement and Migration
  • Politics, Sex and Identity in the Early Modern World
  • Shakespeare: Stage, Page and Screen
  • Gothic and Romantic Literature
  • Spaces of Modernity
  • Children’s Literature
  • Work Project

Year 3

• Mandatory:
  • Independent Research Project
  • Final Performance Project
• Optional:
  • Professional Practice with Placement
  • Theatre & Disability
  • Queer Theatre & Performance
  • Theatre & Education
  • Immersive & Site-responsive Performance
  • Writing for Performance
  • Advanced Acting Practices
  • Staging Shakespeare Today
  • Justice and Revenge: from Tragedy to the Western
  • Postcolonial Encounters
  • Writing and the Environment
  • War and Conflict
  • Gendering Voices
  • Partnerships and Rivalries
  • Literatures and Cultures: International Explorations
  • Queer Bodies, Queer Texts
  • Literature and Culture – Local Heritage
  • Metamorphoses: Literature and Adaptation

Teaching and Assessment

All Theatre, Acting & Performance modules are 'practice-based' (i.e. you learn primarily through participation in performance). All students have opportunities to direct, write, devise and design performance work. Alongside, you examine the cultural contexts of drama and the theories that have spurred its development and informed how we understand it.

There are opportunities to explore the diverse 'applications' of drama (in TV, live theatre, film and online), its social and historical significance, and its community roles and roles in education. Leading theatre companies and practitioners regularly visit to work with students, to provide workshops and to grow your understanding of the profession in support of your employability.

English Literature provides opportunities to explore literatures from the 16th to 21st centuries, embracing both mainstream, 'canonical' and less familiar, 'marginal' texts. It invites you to share with your lecturers cutting-edge thinking in spheres as diverse as Shakespeare in performance, children's literature, contemporary American writing and ecocriticism (the understanding of literary texts through exploration of the interconnections between human culture and organic and animal worlds).

Careers

There are excellent career opportunities for Theatre, Acting and Performance graduates. These are both in drama-related areas, such as theatre, education, and the media, and in a wide range of other fields of employment made accessible through skills learned on the course in presentation, performance, critical thinking and writing, creativity, confidence and communication.

Many English Literature graduates will take a fourth year postgraduate Certificate in Education before entering the teaching profession. Other students will take a certificate in TEFL and become teachers of English as a second language at home or abroad. Those graduates who achieve particularly good results in their first degree will choose to progress to a Masters course, which will then often lead to a career as a researcher or further study to PhD.

Fees and Funding

Full-time Tuition Fees

• UK and EU students: £9,535 per year (2025/26)
• International students: £16,700 per year (2025/26)

Part-time Tuition Fees

• UK and EU students: £1,190.83 per 15-credit module, £1,587.77 per 20-credit module, £2,381.66 per 30-credit module, £3,175.55 per 40-credit module, £3,572.50 per 45-credit module and £4,763.32 per 60 credit module (2025/26)
• International students: Not specified

Additional Costs

• Every course has day-to-day costs for basic books, stationery, printing and photocopying. The amounts vary between courses.
• If your course offers a placement opportunity, you may need to pay for an Enhanced Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) check.

Accommodation

• Finding the right accommodation is paramount to your university experience. Our halls of residence are home to friendly student communities, making them great places to live and study. We have over 1,000 rooms across our range of student halls. With rooms to suit every budget and need, from our 'Traditional Halls' at £131 per week to 'Ensuite Premium Halls' at £228 per week (2025/26 prices).

How to Apply

• Part-time applications: Complete our online application form.
• Applying through UCAS: English Literature BA (Hons) and Theatre, Acting & Performance - WQ43
• UCAS Code: WQ43
• Apply Via UCAS

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