Simone Knox

University of Reading, Film, Theatre, and Television, Faculty Member

Followers

554

Following

Co-authors

Public Views

My main research interests lie in the analysis of television and film, especially:
- aesthetics and medium specificity, particularly the relationships between film and television, convergence culture; as well as acting and performance;
- the transnationalisation of film and television, especially the relationships between British and US television, and audio-visual translation (dubbing and subtitling);
- representations of the body and issues of identity, particularly representations of Chineseness in television drama;
- the lived experience of screen culture, especially through the use of practitioner interviews.

less

InterestsView All (15)

Uploads

Papers by Simone Knox

The Transatlantic Dimensions of the Time Lord

Muito boa qualidade, de facto": Shooting the Past e o caso das séries dramáticas de qualidade da televisão britânica na era da televisão de qualidade americana. ["Rather good quality, in fact": Shooting the Past and the case of British Quality Television Drama in the age of AQTV]

Game of Thrones

<p>This chapter explores how the acting in <italic>Game of Thrones</italic> (HB... more <p>This chapter explores how the acting in <italic>Game of Thrones</italic> (HBO, 2011–present) both confirms and problematizes some common assumptions about British acting, and thus by extension notions of difference between British and American acting. The chapter anchors its analysis in the work by Conleth Hill (who plays Varys) and Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth). It considers the ways in which their performances challenge binary distinctions commonly found in discourses on British and American acting (e.g., technical strength versus organic "shooting from the hip," suitability for stage-versus suitability for screen-based work). By highlighting the complexity and nuance in Hill's and Cunningham's acting, the chapter makes an intervention into discourses about British acting that is especially timely given the considerable success of British and Irish actors in contemporary US film and television. In doing so, it makes a valuable contribution to scholarship on performance and transatlantic television.</p>

Five’s Finest

Reading CSI, 2007

Friends

The One with the Orbit of Failure: The Joey Spin-Off, Other Adaptations and the Global Reception of Friends

Friends, 2019

This chapter looks beyond Friends to consider the show’s intertextual brethren, whose different d... more This chapter looks beyond Friends to consider the show’s intertextual brethren, whose different degrees of failure help to illuminate Friends’ appeal and success around the globe. An interview with Kevin S. Bright, who was executive producer for the Joey spin-off, informs the analysis of this short-lived programme, as well as an intervention into scholarly conceptualisations of what constitutes ‘failure’. The authors analyse the short-lived US format adaptation of the Friends-influenced British sitcom Coupling, which challenges established terms such as ‘creative borrowing’. The chapter then explores the reception of Friends in such diverse cultural contexts as India, Egypt and Germany and provides insights into how audiences from different socio-cultural backgrounds read the programme, and what issues may arise from audio-visual translation for non-anglophone viewers. The chapter considers Friends’ impact on global television production by exploring two ‘unofficial’ adaptations, fr...

Bringing the Battle to Britain: Band of Brothers and Television Runaway Production in the UK

Journal of British Cinema and Television, 2020

This article explores the development and pre-production history of the 2001 HBO mini-series Band... more This article explores the development and pre-production history of the 2001 HBO mini-series Band of Brothers. It does so via a combination of original archive research (conducted at the BFI Reuben Library) and interviews with several industry figures with relevant professional experience, including John Barclay, the current Head of Recorded Media for the UK trade union Equity, and Roger Harrop, the former director of regional film commission Herts Film Link. Using these methodologies, the article identifies Band of Brothers as the first significant US runaway television production in the UK, and uncovers how this HBO programme came to benefit from British film tax relief. Here, close attention is paid to dubious practices concerning tax policy and contractual agreements for actors, especially Damian Lewis's pay. The article demonstrates the impact Band of Brothers has had on television production in the UK in terms of providing Equity with a useful precedent when negotiating fo...

Download

Exploring the Casting of British and Irish Actors in Contemporary Us Television and Film

Exploring Television Acting, 2018

, to Ed Weeks and Dominic West-the presence of British and Irish actors in contemporary US televi... more

format_quoteThe US television industry's prestige, born in the 1990s, increasingly attracts British and Irish actors for unique roles unavailable in the UK.format_quote

Download

Representations of British Chinese Identities and British Television Drama: Mapping the Field

Journal of British Cinema and Television, 2019

While important scholarship exists on the television representations of Asian American identities... more While important scholarship exists on the television representations of Asian American identities, research in the UK has been focused on African Caribbean and South Asian identities. Very little scholarly attention has been paid to televisual representations of British Chinese identities, despite the British Chinese constituting one of the larger and fastest growing ethnic minority groups within contemporary Britain. Informed by an understanding of the complexity of the term ‘British Chinese’, this article explores the representation of British Chinese identities in British television drama. Despite the long-standing absence and invisibility of such identities in British television, as perceived within the popular imagination in Britain and in British Chinese discourses, the article shows that a larger number of British Chinese actors have found notable employment in British television than is commonly acknowledged or remembered within the popular imagination. The article draws on ...

Download

Crossing Broadcasters: The Transatlantic Exchange Between Sylvester ‘Pat’ Weaver and Sir Ian Jacob, 1955–1956

Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 2017

This article is interested in the long-standing exchange visits by broadcasters across the Atlant... more

Download

Reflection iii: Transnationalisation, Television Formats and the Universal

Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies, 2013

This reflection argues that, despite various good reasons for approaching the notion of the ‘univ... more This reflection argues that, despite various good reasons for approaching the notion of the ‘universal’ with caution, cultural theorists should give up their resistance to the universal. The prominence of formats in today's television suggests that the time is ripe to do. Intentionally or not, accounts of difference implicitly also often reveal sameness; the more we probe heterogeneity, the more likely we are to encounter something that remains consistent and similar. Thus, it is time to collaborate with scholars from the numerous disciplines for which the universal has long had validity and pertinence.

Download

Texture, realism, performance: exploring the intersection of transtexts and the contemporary sitcom

Contemporary US sitcom is at an interesting crossroads: it has received an increasing amount of s... more Contemporary US sitcom is at an interesting crossroads: it has received an increasing amount of scholarly attention (e.g. Mills 2009; Butler 2010; Newman and Levine 2012; Vermeulen and Whitfield 2013), which largely understands it as shifting towards the aesthetically and narratively complex. At the same time, in the post-broadcasting era, US networks are particularly struggling for their audience share. With the days of blockbuster successes like Must See TV’s Friends (NBC 1994-2004) a distant dream, recent US sitcoms are instead turning towards smaller, engaged audiences. Here, a cult sensibility of intertextual in-jokes, temporal and narrational experimentation (e.g. flashbacks and alternate realities) and self-reflexive performance styles have marked shows including Community (NBC 2009-2015), How I Met Your Mother (CBS 2005-2014), New Girl (Fox 2011-present) and 30 Rock (NBC 2006-2013). However, not much critical attention has so far been paid to how these developments in textua...

format_quoteHistorical context shows that storytelling across media has deep roots, evolving from oral traditions to contemporary transmedia narratives.format_quote

Download

Game of Thrones: investigating British acting

This chapter explores how the acting in Game of Thrones (HBO, 2011–present) both confirms and pro... more This chapter explores how the acting in Game of Thrones (HBO, 2011–present) both confirms and problematizes some common assumptions about British acting, and thus by extension notions of difference between British and American acting. The chapter anchors its analysis in the work by Conleth Hill (who plays Varys) and Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth). It considers the ways in which their performances challenge binary distinctions commonly found in discourses on British and American acting (e.g., technical strength versus organic &amp; &#39;shooting from the hip&#39; and suitability for stage-versus suitability for screen-based work). By highlighting the complexity and nuance in Hill&#39;s and Cunningham&#39;s acting, the chapter makes an intervention into discourses about British acting that is especially timely given the considerable success of British and Irish actors in contemporary US film and television. In doing so, it makes a valuable contribution to scholarship on performance and transatlantic television.

Shameless, the push-pull of transatlantic fiction format adaptation, and star casting

New Review of Film and Television Studies, 2018

With a long history of transatlantic exchanges, recent years have seen a notable number of UK-to-... more With a long history of transatlantic exchanges, recent years have seen a notable number of UK-to-USA format adaptations. Factually-based programming (including the Idol franchise) has generally been the most numerous, the most commercially successful and received the most sustained critical attention (e.g. Oren and Shahaf 2012). However, adaptations of fiction formats have met with increasing scholarly attention, and this article will build on this work, interested in the ways in which, as Jean K. Chalaby has noted, the adaptation process for scripted formats: cannot be as perfunctory as for other genres. Scripted genres are the most culturally sensitive, and a comedy or drama cannot be reproduced as mechanistically as a game show or talent competition. […] Any scripted adaptation must go beyond copycat television and reactualize the script for a new audience. (2016, 6) This article will explore the complex push-pull of factors involved in adapting fiction formats across the Atlantic. Here, my invocation of the term 'push-pull' differs from Annette Hill's recent usage in her discussion of fiction format adaptation, where 'the idea of push-pull dynamics is understood as complicated power relations in the transactions between television industries and audiences.' (Hill 2016, 755) Instead, I draw on Albert Moran's (2009, 88) identification of a push-pull tendency in the television format trade between the poles of homogeneity/convergence and heterogeneity/difference. While Moran's analysis is specifically focused on the issue of language, his attention to the conflicting impetuses that mark formats can be usefully linked to Heidi Keinonen's (2016) emphasis on format adaptations as complex sites of culturaland, I would add, industrialnegotiation. Keinonen furthermore locates a schism within existing format scholarship, distinguishing between broader analyses of global format trade (which draw on a political economy approach and frequently do not pay sufficient attention to cultural issues) and analyses of individual case studies, which 'usually limit themselves to the analysis of the final product, the television text, thus ignoring other levels of format industry, like production and reception.' (2016, 4) In my endeavour to undertake an analysis of a specific transatlantic format adaptation that engages with both cultural and production/industry contexts, I have found the term 'push-pull' a useful idea through which to understand and articulate the tensions and negotiations that emerge in the transatlantic trajectory under investigation. The complexity of the push-pull dynamics of interest to this article is only accentuated through the discursive scrutiny bestowed upon such transatlantic adaptations by audiences and press/critics. Fiction format adaptations are often and increasingly consumed with the source programmes as a point of reference and comparison. In the case of transatlantic format adaptations, the shared language, history and cultural commonalities between the USA and the UK only facilitate such comparative scrutiny. Furthermore, common ascriptions of cultural worth and status to the 'original'originality here usually conflated with intrinsic meritstack the cards in favour of the source material. Such evaluative hierarchies represent a particularly pertinent issue for UK-to-USA adaptations, as these are discursively

format_quoteViewer media literacy, influenced by social networks and streaming, intensifies evaluative hierarchies in transatlantic adaptations.format_quote

Download

ADAMOU & KNOX: 1 Transforming Television Drama through Dubbing and Subtitling: Sex and the Cities

The translation practices of dubbing and subtitling, according to Richard Kilborn, are more often... more The translation practices of dubbing and subtitling, according to Richard Kilborn, are more often than not held in disdain, with dubbing the more despised form. i However, it is worth pointing out that this negative attitude is more widespread in countries and television cultures that make less use of these practices, such as the United Kingdom. Both dubbing and subtitling are often conceived of in terms of necessity and practicality: the need for strict adherence to lip-synchronisation, the need for compatibility of source voice and dubbing voice, or the need to use no more than approximately 40 characters on screen in subtitling, ii to allow enough time for the viewer to read the words. A commonly held assumption is that dubbing and subtitling can, at best, produce a translated equivalent -if not equivalence of information, then equivalence of effect -to the source language version. iii It is also worth noting that inherent in this idea of equivalence are problematic assumptions t...

Download

The transatlantic dimensions of the time lord: Doctor Who and the relationships between British and North American television

This chapter explores some of the textual specificity of the Steven Moffat/Matt Smith Doctor Who,... more This chapter explores some of the textual specificity of the Steven Moffat/Matt Smith Doctor Who, in relation to its positioning within the current transatlantic television landscape. The chapter develops further the existing scholarship on Doctor Who, by both offering a critical assessment of the transatlantic dimensions of the Moffat/Smith-era Doctor Who, and by challenging some of the existing critical arguments about Doctor Who's transatlantic dimensions. Particular attention is paid to the casting, physicality and costuming of actor Matt Smith as the Doctor in relation to notions of Britishness.

An actor diversifies: a diachronic examination of the work and career of Tony Curran

This co-authored chapter explores the television work of actor Tony Curran as it has developed du... more This co-authored chapter explores the television work of actor Tony Curran as it has developed during the course of his professional life. Trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), Tony Curran has had a successful career for roughly two decades; one that spans film (e.g. Shallow Grave (1994), Gladiator (2000), Red Road (2006; for which he won a Scottish BAFTA and a British Independent Film award), and Thor: The Dark World (2013)), theatre (e.g. Victoria (Royal Shakespeare Company/Traverse Theatre) and The Glory of Living (Royal Court)), videogames (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3), and television. The chapter explores his work in terms of its notable variety and versatility, using the following case studies: Curran’s small-screen breakthrough as gay Scottish plumber Lenny in BBC2 drama This Life (1997); his portrayal of painter Vincent van Gogh for British SF series Doctor Who (BBC1, 2005-present); an alien in SF series Defiance (...

The One with All the Laughing and the Hugging: Specificity of Humour and Comedic Types

Friends, 2019

This chapter, takes an in-depth look at the specificities of the humour in Friends, arguing that ... more This chapter, takes an in-depth look at the specificities of the humour in Friends, arguing that humour is situated at the heart of its narrative, performance and aesthetic discourses; but also that Friends is a show about humour. The chapter introduces key humour theories and scholarly approaches to ‘sitcom as genre’ before providing a unique comedic typology of Friends’ main characters. This typology demonstrates that the series addresses a considerable range of humouristic themes, comic situations and types of comedic performances. It further illustrates how Friends’ humour is characterised by an ensemble dynamic in which individual jokes almost always serve a larger narrative ‘agenda’. Informed by interviews with Marta Kauffman and Kevin S. Bright and close analysis of several moments, particularly the first scene of the pilot, the chapter shows how densely woven Friends’ humour is and that its distinct comedic sensibility helps to facilitate its strategy of intimacy.

Conclusion: The One where They’ll Still Be There for You—Reflections on Friends’ Place in Television Culture for Its 25th Anniversary

Friends, 2019

This chapter begins to offer the authors’ final reflections on Friends and its place in present a... more This chapter begins to offer the authors’ final reflections on Friends and its place in present and future television culture by attending to an intertextual reference to the series within a television show that in many ways could not be more different from it, namely The Handmaid’s Tale. The contrast between the multi-camera sitcom and the dystopian thriller allows the authors to conclude their considerations of Friends’ strategy of intimacy and to think through the ways in which the programme complicates notions of the ‘then and now’ and discourses of continuation and transformation. Informed by interviews with co-creator Marta Kauffman, executive producer Kevin S. Bright and director James Burrows, the authors sum up the key contribution the book seeks to make to television scholarship and finish by reflecting on Friends’ 25th anniversary in September 2019.

Five's finest: the import of 'CSI' to British television

Simone Knox

Uploads

Papers by Simone Knox

Log In