Celebrating 25 years of lectures from Professor Murray Biggs

It was twenty-five years ago that Professor Murray Biggs first returned to King’s, which he attended as a pupil in the 1940s, to deliver inspiring lectures to our Sixth Form Literature groups. This Monday, Professor Murray Biggs (OR) joined our Lower Sixth Literature, Drama and Zetountes group to talk on the subject of ‘Why Plays Still Matter’. It was a wonderful opportunity to hear his thoughts on the importance of theatre, which as Associate Professor of English and Drama at Yale University, is a subject very close to his heart.

We were asked to consider the importance of drama to writers as a vehicle for expressing themselves, as actors ‘inhabiting’ a persona, and to the audience who watch ‘in real time’ the decision-making of characters either similar or different from themselves. The lecture concluded with a reminder that we can find the dramatic in a range of genres, including poetry and in novel form, with a dramatic reading from the opening of Dickens’ ‘Great Expectations’ in which Imogen (L6) read the part of a trembling young Pip and Mr Wayne Smith (Head of English when Murray first began his visits) playing the part of the gruff Abel Magwitch.

The talk concluded with a question and answer session, in which pupils posed interesting and challenging questions to Murray, such as his views on the extent to which free speech should be protected on the stage and whether Brechtian principles really do alienate the audience from the action.

Once again, Professor Biggs provided our A Level pupils with an excellent opportunity to engage with entertaining, challenging and thought provoking ideas from an expert in his field.