Neo-Victorian Villainy: Adaptation and Reinvention on Stage, Page and Screen.

<p>Guest speaker/panelist at this one-day symposium, which facilitated cross-disciplinary discussion between scholars in Film, Theatre, Television, Neo-Victorian Studies, Literature, Adaptation Studies, and Fan and Popular Culture Studies. At its heart was the research question:In what ways do modern representations of the villain in popular culture draw on the narratives and iconic villains of the Victorian period?The symposium featured papers on neo-Victorian ghosts and vampires, the neo-Victorian villainess, Dickens adaptations, neo-Victorian espionage, melodrama, Batman, Ripper Street, and spirit mediums. My work adapting classic Victorian novels, including those by Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Charlotte Bronte, was discussed in a practitioner panel with Dr Ben Poore (University of York) and fellow playwright Michael Punter.</p>