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Could you tell me about your experience writing Bloodhill with Ewan Fernie?

The process of collaboration between Ewan Fernie and I came about when we began editing a series together called Shakespeare Now! We wanted to think of new ways in which to write literary criticism in order to break the restrictions of scholarly discourse. We were trying to get under the skin of Macbeth. Macbeth is a play of gaps. There is no scene showing the murder of Duncan for example. We wanted to find new ways of probing the puzzle of the play and look at the links between the characters and the audience. How can the audience come to be on the side of infanticidal tyrant? And yet they are. When we were writing this book the critical and the creative began to blur, as it should.

Did you enjoy the process of collaboration?

It’s interesting that there are virtually no novelistic collaborations. Collaboration is harder than working on your own and it depends a huge amount on personal relations. You’ve got to have a resilient ego and be able to accept having your ideas questioned. You have greater freedom when working by yourself, but there are greater imaginative and creative possibilities involved in collaboration. Macbeth said you need a third ear, and collaboration is just like that, as if you’ve been gifted with an extra sense.

How is your play adaptation of The Faerie Queene going?

I wanted to see how this great classic of English literature – fundamentally unread and, for many, unreadable – could be communicated in different forms, spaces and ways to audiences today. It’s an archaic poem but with many pertinent preoccupations: religious fundamentalism, violence and the struggle for virtue. I carried out workshops in schools to test the material. Then I spent a few days with a group of Oxford students, in intense discussion, about how to stage the play. I didn’t want the play to be a metaphysical fantasy so I set it in my native Tasmania in the 1800s. It’s strange collaborating with students when you’re an ‘Oxford don’. I didn’t want there to be any hierarchy or deference. You’ve got to break the barriers. I often wonder why there’s not more work done between the different constituents of Oxford. The worlds of students and fellows are rather separate and it’s a shame. 

How do you divide your time between your academic and creative pursuits?

It’s hard to find time for anything. Everyone at Oxford is busy. So it was sort of hard to combine the two, but not hard in terms of intellect or imagination. It’s harder than writing academic prose.

Did you always want to do creative work alongside your research?

Yes, always. I fell into scholarship rather it being my destiny. I was living in Australia and I wanted to get away. I had no money and the only way to get to Europe was by being a scholar – although temperamentally I’m not one. 

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