To explore modern European theatre by looking at plays, playwrights and key theatre practitioners of the last 150 years. We will be looking at playtexts, videos of plays and hopefully a shared theatre trip. We will explore the rise of naturalism in Ibsen, Strindberg and Chekhov: Irish theatre in Synge and Beckett; Brecht and epic theatre; Pirandello and Dario Fo; Lorca; the theatre of the absurd; Peter Brook; Harold Pinter; the rise of 'physical theatre'. This is to be an extended version of the course I have run in previous years and see it taking two years to complete it. Instead of looking at fragments of plays as before, we will be exploring complete performances of plays where possible.