Dr Benjamin Archer
BA (Hons), PGCLTHE, MA, MPhil, PhD, FHEA

Lecturer

Department of Art and Music

benjamin.archer@solent.ac.uk

Room no. JME001

Biography

Benjamin is a trained actor having studied both a BA (Hons) and MA in Acting. He worked professionally for nine years on both stage and screen productions, predominantly in classical theatre, before deciding to pursue a career in academia.

Benjamin’s research focuses on accessibility in actor training for performing Shakespeare. Through his PhD research he created a new pedagogy – The Shakespeare Toolkit – which adapts Stanislavski’s ‘system’, Elizabethan acting practices, and First Folio Technique to create an accessible approach to actor training for performing Shakespeare. The Shakespeare Toolkit comprises of 20 exercises which are available as a free teaching resource via the website.

Further information

Benjamin’s performance credits include:

Algernon Moncrieff in The Importance of Being Earnest, Dr Watson in The Hound of the Baskervilles, Quince in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Edward Ferrars in Sense and Sensibility, Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Roderigo in Othello, Robin in A Wedding Story and Camillo in The Winters Tale.

For six years Benjamin was head of acting at The Performing Arts Depot, a specialist performing arts college in Bedfordshire.

He spent two academic years as an associate lecturer in acting and performance at Buckinghamshire New University, teaching on their BA Acting and BA Performing Arts programmes.

Benjamin also spent three years lecturing at The University of East London on their postgraduate programmes: MA Acting, MA Theatre Directing and MA Acting for Stage and Screen.

Benjamin's research focuses on creating accessibility in actor training. Through his PhD research he developed a pedagogy for performing Shakespeare, drawing on Stanislavski’s ‘system’, Elizabethan acting practices, and First Folio Technique.

Current approaches tend to position the text and its analysis in verbal reasoning as the initial point of departure for the actor, leading to character much later in the process. This often privileges actors and actors in training from academic backgrounds and disadvantages those from more performative backgrounds. Benjamin’s research focus on a character driven approach will leads to an understanding of the text and the requirements of the verse drama and heightened rhetoric prose through practice rather than verbal reasoning.