For this year’s AC Bradley Shakespeare Memorial Lecture, we welcomed scholar Professor Emma Smith, Fellow at Hertford College, Oxford, who gave us a fascinating lecture ‘Tragic Men? Toxic Men? Shakespeare’s tragedies and masculinity’. The evening in Big C was a welcome return to the series which celebrates OC AC Bradley (Day Boy, 1869) author of some of the most influential Shakespeare scholarship of the 20th Century.

Lit Soc events, helmed by Dr Luke Davidson, continued to invite a range of speakers for the benefit of College and Cheltenham Education Partnership literature students. Speakers included OC Olivia Fisher (Ch, 2021) and current student of literature at the University of York, who provided current pupils with useful insights into university life and her current studies. Other events included a fascinating analysis of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road which welcomed pupils from Balcarras School along with College Upper Sixth.

The Cheltenham Literature Festival is always a highlight and this year was very useful for Upper Sixth students writing about Ian McEwan’s Atonement for their A Level coursework. They attended an invaluable talk and Q&A session with the author himself.

The year ended with the Hannam Clark Poetry Recital with Third Form. The entire year group had chosen, learned and recited their poems in their classes and put forward nominations for the final which was held in Chapel. Places went to Tommy Weston (3rd), Helena Brewis (2nd) and Perlie Man (1st).

Mr Simon Gould