DR DAVID EDWARDS
Reader – BA (Hons) Acting for Stage & Screen
Qualifications:
PhD (University of York)
MA in Directing, Theatre & Performance (University of York)
FHEA (Advance HE)
PGCE (FE) in Education (Sunderland University)
BA (Hons) in Acting (Guildhall School of Music & Drama)
BA (Hons) in English (King’s College, London)
David read English at King’s College London before studying Acting at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. The ensemble training he received at the latter has informed his whole career from professional work to teaching. He has worked for the BBC, ITV and various national theatre companies and in 2006 he established Vivid Theatre. Vivid has produced over twenty-seven plays ranging from classical work, contemporary plays and new writing and they have regularly received Arts Council funding.
David completed his PhD in ‘Psychophysical Performance and the Representation of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder on the Stage’ from the University of York and his specialisms include this current research as well as contemporary performance and directing theories. He still acts and directs professionally as well as delivering workshops at both educational and corporate levels. Clients have included the Royal Shakespeare Company, Headlong and a variety of public and private professional bodies.
David has presented papers and practical work at a variety of theatre conferences from the Central European Drama Conference in Slovakia, the Milan Teatro Lita Festival and UK conferences including Birkbeck’s Theatres of Contagion and St Mary’s Mental Health and Theatre multidisciplinary event.
His current research questions both the approaches to theatrical interpretations of mental health as well as mental health representation within the cinematic genre of horror. Current publications surround this latter area with work forthcoming for Bloomsbury, Palgrave and WUP. In 2024 David became member of the Horror Writers Association.
Chapters
Stanislavsky and Neurodiversity: Practice, Pedagogy and Professional Performance, Stanislavsky & Neurodiversity, Routledge, 2027
“If I can change and you can change, everybody can change” – Sylvester Stallone’s reappraisal of Rocky IV with his Ultimate Director’s Cut, Bloomsbury Screen Storytellers: Sylvester Stallone, Bloomsbury, 2027
“I’ve said goodbye to my boogeyman, but the truth is, evil doesn’t die. It changes shape” – How the prototypical slasher no longer needs to perform a slash to make a splash, Style & Form in the Slasher Film II – Beyond Hollywood, Palgrave Macmillan, 2026
Ethical Considerations of Rehearsing and Performing Trauma – Context & Case Study, Stanislavsky & Psychology, Routledge, 2026
You must be the loneliest girl I’ve ever seen – Saint Maud, Religiosity and the Comfort in the Flames, A24 & Horror (WT), Edinburgh University Press, 2026
“All your decisions made” – Toxic Masculinity in the contemporary zombie film, the Palgrave Book of the Zombie, Palgrave Macmillan, 2025
‘The irony of being a zombie is that everything is funny, but you can’t smile, because your lips have rotted off’ – Recontextualising the millennial zombie, The Palgrave Handbook of the Zombie, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024
“It’s what you can’t see…that’s what matters”: A Re-Evaluation of the Human Monster. No More Haunted Dolls: Horror Fiction That Transcends the Tropes, Vernon Press, 2024 (Bram Stoker Award Nominee, 2025).
Journals
“If More People Stuck with Tradition, There’d Be Happier People and Less Divorce”: The Politics of Family Structure in The Stepfather (1987), Cine-Excess (Issue 7), 2026. https://cine-excess.co.uk/journal.html
A Re-Evaluation of Clive Barker’s Cinematic Adaptation of ‘Cabal’, Horror Literature Special Issue (Issue 8), 2023. https://www.horrorhomeroom.com
Recent Research Papers
Cine-Excess: Reanimated! – Reviving Cult Film’s Dead Objects (University of Birmingham) – “All the little devils are proud of hell” – The Resuscitation of the Australian New Wave in Wake in Fright (1971) and Fair Game (1986)
The S-Word: Stanislavsky & Psychology (The Stanislavsky Research Centre & The University of Malta) – The Application of ‘Voice’ & ‘Volume’ when performing psychological trauma
Cine-Excess: Blood Ties: The Family in Cult and Horror Cinema (University of Birmingham) – “If More People Stuck with Tradition, There’d Be Happier People and Less Divorce”: The Politics of Family Structure in The Stepfather Films
Cine-Excess: Raising Hell: Demons, Darkness and the Abject (University of Birmingham) – “I have a scrupulous conscience, Father…this need to confess so many things”: Scrupulosity in Exorcist III
Fear2000: Horror Uncaged (University of Sheffield) – “I’m not alone, I’m here with”: Approaches to Loneliness in Independent British Horror
SWPACA Summer Online Conference: The Loneliness of the Long-Domestic Slasher
Cine-Excess 16: Reframing the Monsters: Loners, Outsiders and Real-Life Loners (University of Birmingham) – Redefining the ‘Horror Loner’ in Light of the Worldwide Lockdown
Crisis and Recovery: Theatre Performance Before and After the Global Pandemic, CATR/ACRT-SQET, Canada (online) – Unstoppable Performance: Teaching Acting in Lockdown and Beyond
‘The Mad Woman in the Arctic – Representing Mental Health in Theatre’ (St.Mary’s University, London) – Psycho-Physical Approaches to the representation of OCD on the Stage
Theatres of Contagion (Birkbeck University, London) – Obsessions, Compulsions & Contagions: A Psycho-Physical Approach to Performance
Central European Drama Conference (Kosice) – Ensemble Learning Techniques
Teatro Lita Theatre Festival (Milan) – The Presentation of Devised Youth Drama
External Activity
Horror Writers Association
Conference Convener – Nightmare (NsofA)
Equity
Links:
https://orcid.org/0009-0008-5412-5462
https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-edwards-889945328/
Email: