Sheridan Humphreys

Sheridan Humphreys is a creative writer and researcher, and a PhD student in Screenwriting in the Department of English, Language and Literature at King’s College London.

She is originally from Sydney, grew up in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, then moved to London. She now lives on the edge of a farm in Surrey.

Her research asks how writers might develop historical drama set in Britain with protagonists who are not white and therefore create leading roles for actors from ethnic minorities. Her doctoral work includes a feature-length, fictional screenplay inspired by the Indigenous Australians who visited Great Britain in the 1840s.

She is the Lead Tutor for the MA Screenwriting at MetFilm School, Ealing Studios and a Lecturer in Screenwriting at the University of Greenwich.

Research

Thesis title: 'The Education of Young Freddy: The PhD and the Movie'

Sheridan's research involves a multi-disciplinary approach to screenwriting scholarship. She is exploring and laying the foundations for a historiographical and creative process that is also a way of confronting indigenous invisibility and doing something about it. In other words, it is about writing leading roles for non-white actors in historical drama set in Britain.

PhD supervision

• Principal supervisor: Ian Henderson

Research and public engagement activities

Inserting Minority Characters into a Majority World: Conversations between a screenwriter and a scriptreader as they rewrite a colonial world – ongoing collaborative screenwriting research project with Dr Rose Ferrell (Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University, Australia)

In 2021 Sheridan performed her one act play, Points Run, as part of the creative writing panel (curated by Nathanael O’Reilly) at the American Association of Australasian Literary Studies (AAALS) conference and at the Menzies Australia Institute Research seminar series.

In August 2019, she participated in a panel at the National Theatre, London, to discuss Indigenous histories and colonial storytelling in response to the tour of the Sydney Theatre Company production of The Secret River by Kate Grenville, adapted by Andrew Bovell.

She convened the inaugural ‘Menzies Early Career Researcher Panel’ at the 2019 European Australian Studies Association (EASA) conference, a multidisciplinary panel that looked at history, museum studies and screenwriting research.

In 2018, Sheridan was commissioned to write three chapters for Women, Our History (foreword by Lucy Worsley), an illustrated history of women.

In 2015 she was awarded the 'LAHP’s CLASH Public Engagement Fellowship' (AHRC) to collaborate with the Cultural Institute at King’s to establish the History and Empire on Screen: Writing the Non-White Protagonist, an interdisciplinary workshop for Screenwriters. This project is ongoing.

Alongside her research, Sheridan continues to engage with the UK film industry. In 2019 she was a judge for the Raindance WebFest, an international showcase for the web series. In 2017 she was selected to be part of CLOSR, a Creative England and British Film Institute (BFI) funded project run by Raising Films to support personal and network development for director/producer/writer parents and carers in the English regions.

In December 2017 she was awarded the King’s Global Research Grant to establish a collaboration between the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies at King’s and the two departments at the University of Newcastle, NSW: Purai Indigenous Diasporas Research Centre & the Department of Creative Industries. In September 2018 she was awarded the Australian Bicentennial Scholarship to undertake further research in Sydney with the University of NSW’s Department of Creative Writing.

Research networks

• American Association of Australasian Literary Studies (AAALS)
• Australian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP)
• Australian Screen Production in Education Research Association (ASPERA)
• European Association of Australian Literary Studies (EASA)
• Screenwriting Research Network (SRN)

Prior to academia

Prior to returning to academia, Sheridan worked extensively in the UK theatre industry as a PR consultant for leading performing arts companies including Candoco Dance Company, Improbable, Talawa and Tamasha.

At the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe, she curated the performers for the National Museum of Scotland’s Fringe After Hours events. In February 2015 she produced the ‘Dancing at Parliament’ event for Dance UK and the All Party Parliamentary Group for Dance which was attended many MPs including Culture Minister Ed Vaizey and was featured on BBC London TV news.

In 2011 she received the Fringe Report Award for Best PR. Her musical for kids, Dude! Where’s My Teddy Bear? toured to three Edinburgh Festivals, two Glastonburys and a London season, and was optioned for TV development. Other past employers include the BBC, Emap, The Boston Consulting Group, boo.com and The Rough Guides.

Further details

See Sheridan's research profile and her website.