English and Drama

English and drama is a degree that brings together two disciplines concerned with how human beings use language and performance to make meaning, tell stories, and explore experience. English literature engages you with the full range of written texts across periods, genres, and cultures, developing close reading skills, critical awareness, and the ability to construct sophisticated arguments about how texts work and what they mean. Drama extends this into the embodied, collaborative, and live dimensions of storytelling, examining theatre history and theory alongside the practical and creative aspects of performance, directing, devising, and production.

At the University of Exeter, the flexibility of the joint honours programme allows you to study across both disciplines, choosing from a wealth of optional content that means you can pursue the areas you find most compelling within each field. You will develop critical and analytical skills through the study of literary texts, bringing historical, cultural, and theoretical frameworks to bear on how literature works across different periods and traditions. Through the drama strand, you will engage with performance theory, theatre history, and practical work, developing your understanding of the theatrical event as an art form and as a social and cultural practice.

The programme runs over three years and includes a sandwich year, a year abroad, and a work placement, giving you the opportunity to develop professionally in relevant creative or educational environments and to encounter different literary and theatrical traditions through time spent abroad.

Graduates from English and drama degrees pursue careers in theatre, film, television, writing, education, publishing, journalism, arts administration, community arts, and communications. The combination of analytical depth and creative and performative skills is valued in any context where the ability to communicate with imagination and precision matters. Postgraduate study in literature, theatre, creative writing, or education is a natural route for those who wish to develop further.