Victoria Lowe

My research sits at the intersection of film and television history and theatre studies, contributing to the field of entangled media histories through a focus on British screen culture and performance. I am particularly concerned with how film, television, and theatre intersect through shared creative practices, institutions, personnel, and aesthetic traditions, and how these relationships shape the development of British cinema and television.

A core strand of my research examines performance across media, tracing how theatrical traditions, acting styles, and production cultures migrate between stage, screen, and television. This interest underpins my first monograph   Adaptation Between Stage and Screen (2020) and my recent chapter (2026) on Hitchcock's The Skin Game (1932) in  Acting and Performance in Hitchcock, which I co-edited with Adrian Garvey. I have also written extensively about the actor's voice on screen.

Archives play a central methodological role in my research. I have worked extensively with primary materials including the Robert Donat Archive, the Basil Dean papers, and the C. A. Lejeune archive held at the John Rylands Research Institute and Library, Manchester, as well as the Jocelyn Herbert Archive at the University of the Arts London. My engagement with archives enables historically grounded analysis of performance practices across media.

More recently, my research has expanded to include work on the Granada Television Archive, a hugely significant yet largely untapped collection relating to Granada Television programmes and studios.. This emerging project explores regional broadcasting in the UK.  I am currently developing a production history on Granada's landmark adaptation of Brideshead Revisited (1981).

Biography

Prior to working in academia, I worked as a producer in Drama across radio, television and film. I was also a script reader for BBC Wales and the BBC Radio Drama Department in Manchester and Film Education Manager at FACT in Liverpool. I have a PGCE in Drama and English from the University of Aberystwyth.

I was part time as a Lecturer at University of Manchester from 2006 - 2016 and have also worked as a Film Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University (2007- 9) and Edge Hill (2010 - 2012)

I am currently the Programme Director for the MA in Film Studies

My research interests include; early television, stage/screen adaptation: theatricality in the cinema; intermediality; screen acting and stardom and the voice in cinema. I welcome any proposals for post-graduate study in these areas.

Current research projects:

Current/recent teaching:

My teaching interests include approaches to national cinemas, adaptation between stage and screen and screen acting and stardom. 

DRAM 10031: Art of Film 
DRAM 20031/2: Contemporary British Cinema 
DRAM 30222: Screen Acting and Stardom 

DRAM 60151 Approaches to National Cinemas 

 
Research Tools and Methods: Archive Methodology.