We have a fantastic collection of digital collections for study and research in Drama including multimedia, magazine and newspaper archives, periodicals, e-book and play script collections and much more!
Use this material to enrich your research and gain a deeper understanding of a topic.
Multimedia, criticism and reference works
Digital Theatre Plus
Online resource providing high-quality full-length films of leading British theatre productions plus interviews with the cast, the creative and production teams behind each show and documentaries.
Drama Online
An extensive online collection of play scripts, recordings, criticism and playwright biographies from all time periods. We have access to:
- Core Collection
- Nick Hern Playtexts
- Oberon books collection 1
- National Theatre Collection 1
- PATAZ Physical actor training an A-Z
- Critical Studies and Performance Practice e-books
Magazine archives
Look at the content and topics covered in the archives to learn about the important issues within theatre history, find reviews of plays and performances and follow an actors career.
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive (EIMA)
An archival research resource containing the essential primary sources for studying the history of the film and entertainment industries, from the era of vaudeville and silent movies through to the 21st century. The core US and UK trade magazines covering film, music, broadcasting and theatre are included, together with film fan magazines and music press titles.
Digital Archives
The digital archives illuminate aspects of social, political and literary life of the time and are a fantastic source for the study of theatre history.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO)
You have access to these primary source collections:
- British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture
- European Literature, 1790-1840: The Corvey Collection.
Victorian Popular Culture: a Portal
Victorian Popular Culture is an online archive containing artefacts, printed ephemera, periodicals, printed books and merchandise. The collection is grouped arounf four themes; 1. Spiritualism, Sensation and Magic, 2. Circuses, Sideshows and Freaaks, 3. Music Hall, Theatre and Popular Entertainment, and 4. Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments and the Advent of Cinema.
Periodical Archives Online
Periodicals Archive Online is a major archive that makes the backfiles of scholarly periodicals in the arts, humanities and social sciences available electronically, providing access to the searchable full text of hundreds of titles. The collection includes: British periodicals (1681 – 1939, 1869 – 2005), American periodicals (1740 – 1940) and historical newspapers:
- Guardian and Observer
- New York Times
- Chicago Tribune
- Los Angeles Times.
Gale Primary Sources
Allows you to search 18 primary source databases from Gale Cengage with a single search. The following databases are covered:
- Eighteenth Century Collections Online
- Nineteenth Century Collections Online
- British Library Newspapers
- The Illustrated London News Historical Archive, 1842-2003
- The Listener Historical Archive, 1929-1991
- Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals
- Punch Historical Archive, 1841-1992
- Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection
- The Times Digital Archive
- The Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive
- Plus various other newspaper archives