Hayley Bradley

My current research considers ‘Deathly Spectatorship’ and representations of death across visual culture – from bedside depictions of dying to violent stage spectacle to wakes in early film to funeral practices and memento mori (co-authored with Janice Norwood, Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2027).  I’ve recently published on ‘Dangerous Performance and Injury to the Illusion’, in K. Newey, J. Davis and P. Smith eds., Theatre and Visual Culture, (Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2026) and ‘Historicizing the Nineteenth-Century Entrepreneurial Theatrical Artisan: The Case of Henry Hamilton’ (Journal for Victorian Culture, OUP 2025). However, my fascination with the Victorians and popular culture predates these works……

The nineteenth century has long been an endless source of curiosity and discovery for me, as has the theatre. After my B.A in ‘English Literature and Language’ at King’s  College, London and my M.A at RADA (and a journalism stint at Vogue) I realised my PhD ambition and moved out of London to Manchester.  While developing my thesis in the Drama department at UOM (and later as Teaching Fellow) I gained extensive teaching experience, worked as an editorial assistant on several book projects and the journal Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film (SAGE).  During this period, I served as first Membership Secretary and then Treasurer on the TaPRA (Theatre and Performance Research Association) executive committee and subsequently co-convened the ‘History and Historiography’ working group. 

In my first permanent post at Sheffield Hallam University I progressed to a Senior Lectureship in Stage & Screen and was awarded several teaching and academic advising awards at Faculty and University level.  During my time at Sheffield Hallam I co-designed and delivered a ‘Performance Practices’ MA programme (with UCEN, Manchester) and led the new Humanities Foundation Year course. Since returning to Manchester as a Research Associate I have been developing a number of research outputs, undertaking scoping work for the Leverhulme bid and acted as a consultant on the TV series ‘Who do you think you are?’.

Working on the Leverhulme funded George R. Sims project (2026-2029) offers an exciting opportunity to rediscover the substantial body of work, influence and impact of a key figure in theatre history – whose creativity spanned poetry, drama, fiction, journalism, social tracts and early film.

I am a researcher on theatre and performance in the long nineteenth century. My research interests span Victorian and Edwardian creative industries, the commercial marketplace and early film with particular focus on stage machinery, collaboration, adaptation and material culture. Underpinning my work is an enthusiasm for making the invisible labour practices of stage and screen visible in present and future histories of the period.

As of August 2026 I will be Associate Researcher for the Leverhulme Trust Research Project, ‘The Writer as Social Activist in the Culture Industry: George R. Sims 1880-1920s’ (2026-2029), led by Prof. Maggie B. Gale.  

Focussing on George R. Sims, one of the most prolific, celebrated, yet now largely overlooked, theatre and film authors of his era, this project explores the modelling of social activist writers who combined popular entertainment and public debate, at scale and across media from the 1880-1920s. Sims wrote ‘to entertain’ but embedded critiques of the inequalities produced by urban capitalism, as writer, public figure and social activist within the rapidly expanding cultural landscape of commercial UK theatre, film and journalism. The project also crucially facilitates re-configurations of archive holdings, making accessible key cultural works for the first time.

In the broadest sense I’m interested in theatre industry practices and practicalities during the long nineteenth century – from how dramatists actually collaborated to the perils for the performer in realising feats of stage spectacle. Most recently I’ve focussed on ‘death’ as motif across visual culture and the role of the ‘theatrical artisan’ in theatre making.  Alongside this I continue to explore aspects of material culture vis-a- vis stagecraft and spectatorship as it relates to sensation scenes, pictorial posters, magic lantern shows, production souvenirs, theatre/film magazines and so on.

Underpinning my work is the impetus to recover hidden or overlooked figures from the period and relocate them in theatre history in order to further understandings of how theatre operated and functioned but also to map a more democratic landscape of the cultural marketplace.

Spanning historical, theoretical and practical approaches I have taught core and elective specialist courses across undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum. I have designed and delivered foundation year, BA and MA programmes and during my time at Sheffield Hallam was twice awarded both the Faculty prize for ‘Inspirational Teaching’ and the University award.

Supervision

I welcome enquiries for research supervision in:

• ·       Theatre History and historiography
• ·       Popular culture and popular entertainment
• ·       Adaptation
• ·       Melodrama
• ·       Material culture
• ·       Theatre and labour
• ·       Victorian studies