Dr Richard O'Brien

Assistant Professor

School: Humanities and Social Sciences

After an undergraduate degree in English and French, I was a member of the Shakespeare Institute (University of Birmingham)'s first MA cohort in Shakespeare and Creativity. My PhD, which included elements of original creative practice, looked at the impact of Shakespeare on the development of verse drama in English. Since then I've taught in both early modern literature and creative writing departments. I'm a specialist in formal poetry (though this isn't all I write or read!), with interests in influence and adaptation, and I teach on Creative Writing courses at all levels of the UG and PG curriculum.

From 2018-2020 I was Birmingham's Poet Laureate, writing commissioned work in response to local history, and have continued to develop place-based writing in the North East, editing a local poetry column for the I Love North Shields community newspaper. In 2022 I received British Academy funding for the project 'A practice-based approach to auto/biography: Exploring John Darnielle’s Portland.'

Email Richard

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

My current works in progress include an experimental novel set in Nantes, France - a coming-of-age story with elements of urban fantasy - a Catholic detective novel inspired by Graham Greene, and a music memoir about my relationship with my favourite band, the Mountain Goats. I'm particularly interested in the co-curation aspect of fan community archives in shaping independent artists' legacies.

Over the last ten years I’ve published poems on a range of subjects, from domestic space to internet shock images to weird experiments with dolphins. My pamphlets have come out with The Emma Press, Valley Press, and Broken Sleep Books, and I’m working towards a full collection. In 2017, I was one of six winners of the Society of Authors’ Eric Gregory Awards for a collection of poems by an author under thirty.

I also write for children, for theatre (including musical theatre - I participate as a lyricist in the Book, Music and Lyrics development scheme) and as an academic critic, focused on Shakespeare and early modern literature, and their reception by contemporary creators and audiences. Publications in this field include an article on fictional representations of Ben Jonson, a book chapter on 20th century adaptations of Volpone - including two musicals - and a book chapter on the unpleasant character of Shakespeare in Upstart Crow and Something Rotten. My practice-led PhD research was on Shakespeare and the development of verse drama.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Early Modern Poetry and the Uses of the Past in John Darnielle's Songwriting, O'Brien, R. 22 Jun 2026, The Routledge Companion to Early Modern Music and Literature, London, Routledge
The Confessional Turn, O'Brien, R. 26 Jun 2025, Broad Sound Spotlights: The Sunset Tree at 20, Broadsound
"I Know My Clay": Some Musical Afterlives of Hamlet's Gravedigger, O'Brien, R. 15 Feb 2021, In: Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation
The Dolphin House, O'Brien, R. 28 Feb 2021
Adapting Jonson: Three Twentieth-Century Volpones, O'Brien, R. Dec 2020, Ben Jonson and Posterity , New York, Cambridge University Press
Dragons of the Prime: Poems About Dinosaurs, O'Brien, R. 2019
The Bard-baiting Model in Upstart Crow and Something Rotten, O'Brien, R. 1 Apr 2020, Shakespeare and his Biographical Afterlives, New York, Berghahn Books
Community and Conflict: A Practitioner’s Perspective on Verse Drama, O'Brien, R. 12 Dec 2018, In: Connotations
‘We are folk / Who understand unhampered language best’: Peter Oswald, T. S. Eliot, and the Possibilities of (Contemporary) Poetic Drama at Shakespeare’s Globe, O'Brien, R. 7 Sep 2020, In: Coup de Théâtre
“Every Man According to the Squip”: Magic, Metatheatre and Mind Control from A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Be More Chill, O'Brien, R. 1 Mar 2020, Critical Insights , Amenia, Grey House/Salem Press

Professional Activity

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Participating in a conference, workshop, ...: STAVE/OFF 2026
Organising a conference, workshop, ...: A Night in Shakespeare’s World 2026

PGR Supervision

Jane Inglis Start Date: 01/10/2025 End Date: 17/10/2025
Rebecca Ferrier Suffer, Pilgrim: How can pilgrimage narratives explore and complicate notions of recovery? Start Date: 01/10/2023 End Date: 17/10/2025
Jane Inglis 'High Fantasy, Ideological State Apparatuses, and Conceptions of ‘Western Civilisation’’ Start Date: 01/10/2025
Rebecca Ferrier Suffer, Pilgrim: How can fictional pilgrimage narratives explore and complicate notions of recovery? Start Date: 01/10/2023
Barry Marshall ‘Present Absences and the Roar of Silence’: Writing about Contemporary UK Working-Class Identity Through the Mnemonic Liminality of Village Spaces Start Date: 02/10/2024 End Date: 13/07/2025