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English and Drama

Entry Year: 2024

2 study options

English and Drama BA (Hons)

Key information

Degree
BA (Hons)
Duration
3 years
Start
September 2024
UCAS code
QW34
Institution code
Q50
Typical A-Level offer
Grades ABB at A-Level. This must include a minimum of 6 in Higher Level English A. This must include grade A or above in A-Level English Literature, English Language and Literature or English Language. Excludes General Studies and Critical Thinking.
Full entry requirements (including contextual admissions)
Home fees
£9,250
Overseas fees
£23,350
Funding information
Paying your fees

English and Drama with Year Abroad BA (Hons)

Key information

Degree
BA (Hons)
Duration
4 years
Start
September 2024
UCAS code
QW4Y
Institution code
Q50
Typical A-Level offer
Grades ABB at A-Level. This must include grade A or above in A-Level English Literature, English Language and Literature or English Language. Excludes General Studies and Critical Thinking.
Full entry requirements (including contextual admissions)
Home fees
£9,250
Overseas fees
£23,350
Funding information
Paying your fees

Year abroad cost

Finances for studying abroad on exchange

View details

Overview

Are you interested in the fusion of literature, performance and culture?

Our BA joint honours English and Drama programme is an exciting opportunity to study the practice of theatre and performance, and the reading of texts from a broad spectrum of genres and periods. It combines practical and theoretical study in a wide range of interconnected areas, providing you with a variety of approaches to drama and literary studies as active and dynamic subjects.

Along with an understanding of how approaches to Drama and English complement one another, you will be encouraged to locate texts and performances in their political, cultural, and historical contexts. You'll also develop your communication and research skills, and skills in working collaboratively.

Our staff – leading academics and artists – will work with you to make learning challenging and engaging, and help you to develop as an informed critic, reader and performance maker.

Register your interest

 

Book a 1-2-1 chat

Structure

You can complete your English and Drama degree in three or four years. If you choose to do a year abroad this will take place in Year 3 and Year 3 modules will instead be studied in Year 4.

Year 1

Your first year includes a combination of practice-based and lecture/seminar-based modules:

  • Drama: London, Culture and Performance (15 Credits)
  • Drama: Power Plays (15 Credits)
  • Drama: Beyond Acting (30 Credits)

Plus:

  • English: Poetry (15 Credits)
  • English: London Global (30 Credits)
  • English: Literatures in Time Epic and Romance in the Middle Ages (15 Credits)

You can find out more about our modules from Queen Mary’s module directory.

Please note that all modules are subject to change.

Year 2

In English you select one 30 credit module from list 1 or 2 t two modules across three subject areas:

List One: Medieval and Early Modern Studies

  • Chaucer: Gender, Faith, Identity
  • Renaissance Drama
  • Renaissance Literary Culture

List Two: Eighteenth-Century, Romanticism, and Nineteenth-Century Studies

  • Representing London: Writing the Eighteenth-Century City
  • Romantics and Revolutionaries
  • Victorian Fictions

List Three: Modern, Contemporary and Postcolonial Studies

  • Modernism
  • Postcolonial and Global Literatures
  • The Long Contemporary

List Four: Special Options (modules subject to change each year):

  • American Romanticism
  • Art Histories: an Introduction to the Visual Arts in London
  • Global Shakespeare
  • James Baldwin and American Civil Rights
  • Terror, Trangression and Astonishment; the Gothic in the Long Nineteenth Century
  • The Crisis of Culture: Literature and Politics 1918–1948
  • The Thousand and One Nights

In Drama, you will select at least one Drama module from:

  • Culture, Power and Performance (seminar-based)
  • Group Practical Project (practice-based)

You then choose your remaining modules from a selection of Drama modules that changes each year. Modules may include:

  • Action Design
  • Art and the Climate Crisis
  • Culture, Power and Performance
  • London Performance Now
  • Making Contemporary Theatre
  • Naturalism
  • Performance and Visual Culture in South Asia
  • Race and Racism in Performance
  • Theatre, Experiment and Revolution
  • Voice, Gender, Performance

This is a sample of modules from our full module directory.

 

Please note that all modules are subject to change.

Year 3

You select one from: 

  • English Research Dissertation
  • Practice-based Research Project
  • Written Research Project

You select the rest of your final-year modules from range of seminar and practice-based options that changes each year.

Modules may include

  • British Fictions of the 1960s
  • Conspiracy, Misinformation, and Power in Early Modern Literature
  • Creative Writing Prose Fiction
  • Criticism and Code: Digital Practices for English Studies
  • Feminism(s)
  • Guillotines, Ghosts and Laughing Gas: Literature in the 1790s
  • Laughing Matters: Comedy and Contemporary Culture 
  • Shakespeare: the Play, the Word and the Book
  • Victorian Sensation Fiction
  • Applied Performance
  • Culture, Performance and Globalisation
  • Madness and Theatricality
  • Offstage London
  • Performance Composition
  • Showbusiness: Theatre and Capitalism
  • Theatre and the Supernatural
  • Verbatim, Testimonial, Tribunal
  • Writing Black and Asian Britain

This is a sample of modules from our full module directory.

Please note that all modules are subject to change.

Study options

Apply for this degree with any of the following options. Take care to use the correct UCAS code - it may not be possible to change your selection later.

Year abroad

Go global and study abroad as part of your degree – apply for our English and Drama BA with a Year Abroad. Queen Mary has links with universities in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia (partnerships vary for each degree programme).

Find out more about study abroad opportunities at Queen Mary

Additional Costs

Some modules require you to buy books, tickets to performances or exhibitions, and travel within London. Tickets are free in your first year and, where possible, offered at a discounted rate in subsequent years.

student profile image
Testimonial

In English and Drama you are working with people, both practical workshops and seminars, it's very sociable.  

Christopher Smith, English and Drama (2019)

Teaching

Teaching and learning

You’ll usually attend eight hours of classes weekly, mainly in the form of seminars, lectures and studio-based workshops. Practice-based modules include additional scheduled studio time weekly for student-led practice. Some modules also include lectures, tutorials and field trips.

For every hour spent in class, you'll complete approximately three to four further hours of independent study preparing for classes and assignments.

Assessment

Assessment typically includes a combination of written and practical assignments, such as essays, performances, presentations, portfolios, log books, programme notes, reviews, feature articles, artist websites, podcasts and dissertations. Some assessment is based around group work, especially for performance projects and presentations. There are no written exams in English or Drama.

Resources and facilities

The School offers excellent on-campus and London-based resources to support your studies, including:

  • Arts facilities including BLOC arts centre including a state of the art DOLBY Atmos cinema, film studios, Pinter Studio, Film and Drama Studio, rehearsal rooms and dedicated technical team.
  • access to Senate House Library and the British Library – the most important intellectual resources in London
  • opportunities to meet visiting experts including publishers, curators, archivists, poets, novelists, artists, directors, producers, playwrights and activists
  • motion capture equipment, allowing students to explore innovative practices with new technology and film
  • opportunities to act, direct and stage manage through the Queen Mary Theatre Company
  • proximity to specialist archives and collections such as the National Theatre, Live Art Development Agency Study Room, Poetry Library, Women’s Library, Black Cultural Archives and Warburg Institute
  • opportunities to write, edit and publish for student newspapers and magazines
Video

Drama and English graduate Lucy Tudor talks about the course and why drama mattered to her career.

Entry requirements

A-LevelGrades ABB at A-Level. This must include a minimum of 6 in Higher Level English A. This must include grade A or above in A-Level English Literature, English Language and Literature or English Language. Excludes General Studies and Critical Thinking.
IBInternational Baccalaureate Diploma with a minimum of 32 points overall, including 6,5,5 from three Higher Level subjects.
BTECSee our detailed subject and grade requirements
Access HEWe consider applications from students with the Access to Higher Education Diploma. The minimum academic requirement is to achieve 60 credits overall with 45 credits at Level 3, of which 15 credits must be at Distinction and 15 credits at Merit or higher. This must include at least 6 Level 3 credits in English Literature or Literacy modules at Distinction.
GCSEMinimum five GCSE passes including English at grade C or 4.
EPQ

Alternative offers may be made to applicants taking the Extended Project Qualification.

For further information please visit: qmul.ac.uk/undergraduate/entry/epq

Contextualised admissions

Our standard contextual offer: Grades BBC including English Literature or English Language at A-Level. Excludes General Studies, Critical Thinking.

Our enhanced contextual offer (for care experienced students, refugee/asylum seekers or students who have completed Realising Opportunities or Access to Queen Mary): Grades BCC including English Literature or English Language at A-Level. Excludes General Studies, Critical Thinking.

More information on how this information is used for a contextual offer can be found on our contextualised admissions page.

A-LevelGrades ABB at A-Level. This must include grade A or above in A-Level English Literature, English Language and Literature or English Language. Excludes General Studies and Critical Thinking.
IBInternational Baccalaureate Diploma with a minimum of 32 points overall, including 6,5,5 from three Higher Level subjects. This must include a minimum of 6 in Higher Level English A.
BTECSee our detailed subject and grade requirements
Access HEWe consider applications from students with the Access to Higher Education Diploma. The minimum academic requirement is to achieve 60 credits overall with 45 credits at Level 3, of which 15 credits must be at Distinction and 15 credits at Merit or higher. This must include at least 6 Level 3 credits in English Literature or Literacy modules at Distinction.
GCSEMinimum five GCSE passes including English at grade C or 4.
EPQAlternative offers may be made to applicants taking the Extended Project Qualification. For further information please visit: qmul.ac.uk/undergraduate/entry/epq
Contextualised admissionsOur standard contextual offer: Grades BBC including English Literature or English Language at A-Level. Excludes General Studies, Critical Thinking.

Our enhanced contextual offer (for care experienced students, refugee/asylum seekers or students who have completed Realising Opportunities or Access to Queen Mary): Grades BCC including English Literature or English Language at A-Level. Excludes General Studies, Critical Thinking.

More information on how this information is used for a contextual offer can be found on our contextualised admissions page.

Non-UK students

We accept a wide range of European and international qualifications in addition to A-levels, the International Baccalaureate and BTEC qualifications. Please visit International Admissions for full details.

If your qualifications are not accepted for direct entry onto this degree, consider applying for a foundation programme.

English language

Find out more about our English language entry requirements, including the types of test we accept and the scores needed for entry to the programme.

You may also be able to meet the English language requirement for your programme by joining a summer pre-sessional programme before starting your degree.

Further information

See our general undergraduate entry requirements.

Funding

Loans and grants

UK students accepted onto this course are eligible to apply for tuition fee and maintenance loans from Student Finance England or other government bodies.

Scholarships and bursaries

Queen Mary offers a generous package of scholarships and bursaries, which currently benefits around 50 per cent of our undergraduates.

Scholarships are available for home, EU and international students. Specific funding is also available for students from the local area. International students may be eligible for a fee reduction. We offer means-tested funding, as well as subject-specific funding for many degrees.

Find out what scholarships and bursaries are available to you.

Support from Queen Mary

We offer specialist support on all financial and welfare issues through our Advice and Counselling Service, which you can access as soon as you have applied for a place at Queen Mary.

Take a look at our Student Advice Guides which cover ways to finance your degree, including:

  • additional sources of funding
  • planning your budget and cutting costs
  • part-time and vacation work
  • money for lone parents.

Careers

Our English and Drama graduates go on to work across many different sectors, such as the creative arts, publishing, teaching, and media and broadcasting.

Recent graduates from the School of English and Drama have been hired by:

  • BBC
  • Harper Collins
  • The Independent
  • National Theatre
  • Penguin Random House
  • Shakespeare’s Globe.

Career support

You’ll have access to bespoke careers support during your degree including access to experts in the Departments of English and Drama, specific modules (e.g. Applied Performance, Drama and Education, Writing about the Arts, Livelihoods in English); School and Department-run careers and professional development workshops; extra-curricular experience with arts organisations; and advice about postgraduate study.

Our Queen Mary careers team can also offer:

  • specialist advice on choosing a career path
  • support with finding work experience, internships and graduate jobs
  • feedback on CVs, cover letters and application forms
  • interview coaching

Learn more about career support and development at Queen Mary.

Data for these courses

English and Drama - BA (Hons)

English and Drama with Year Abroad - BA (Hons)

The Discover Uni dataset (formerly Unistats)

About the School

The School of English and Drama provides a first-class learning environment -- the Departments of Drama and English are in the top 40 in the world (QS World Rankings by Subject 2019). And you’ll learn from leading experts: Drama is ranked first and English fifth in the UK for research quality (Research Excellence Framework 2014).

We are a large school, with a lot of specialist staff, enabling us to offer a wide range of topics and approaches. You’ll have tailored support, including individual feedback on your work, and there are opportunities to contribute to student performances and publications.

We regularly host prominent writers and performers and collaborate with leading organisations such as the V&A, the Barbican, the Live Art Development Agency and Shakespeare’s Globe. Our course makes full use of London’s exceptional theatre and performance resources (e.g. theatres, galleries, museums, libraries, archives, site-specific performance, festivals).

The School runs several innovative research centres, including the Centre for Poetry; the Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies; the Centre for Religion and Literature in English; and the Sexual Cultures Research Group.

Contact us

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