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Musical Theatre lags behind theatre, film and television when it comes to female characterisation, particularly in key supporting roles. Literature outlines how the predominance of male creatives in the field drives the presentation of story and characterisation in new and reimagined musicals, and female characters are assessed by whether they are 'strong' because of the storylines they must face. However, the frequently limited depth of characterisation is less well documented. I explore the making of pivotal female roles in Musical Theatre with the creation of a new musical adaptation of Emmuska Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905), grounding the formation of the pivotal female role in her characterisation from the original book (Orczy, 1905). I employ autoethnography, journaling the choices I made/make during the adaptation process, and reflecting on how my own experiences influenced my decisions. I consider the way paradigms create perceptions for both audience members and creatives, generating heuristics that shape how we create and receive musical theatre. Focusing on the common character-type, the Love Interest, I posit how reintroducing the ancient Greek term, Deuteragonist, for pivotal characters could encourage creatives to consider Love Interest to be one function of a well-developed character instead of their primary purpose.

This piece of research seeks to understand the concept of professionalism in relation to trainee teachers currently undertaking Initial Teacher Training (ITT) within Further Education (FE). In particular, it focuses on their reasons for undertaking a teaching qualification at a time when the sector is undergoing yet another period of political intervention with the deregulation of the FE workforce. The onus has been firmly put at the feet of employers to determine appropriate teaching qualifications for their employees. At the start of my study College A was requiring its staff to have a teaching qualification, but, by the time this study was coming to an end, this was no longer the case. I adopted a case study approach to interview both trainee teachers and senior managers within my own organisation to ascertain whether having a full teaching qualification is seen as both necessary and more importantly fundamental to making an FE teacher ‘professional’. The findings reveal that the concept of professionalism is complex, and that there is a wide range of both definition and meaning. Using life histories, I was able to identify the impact of experience and other factors which contribute to the life trajectory of trainee FE teachers, and which determine their own view of what it means to be professional.

The primary aim of the thesis is to assess whether ethical governance of Science and Technology is feasible as a global approach, using the example of nanotechnology. The thesis firstly compares ethical issues identified by stakeholders in China and the EU relating to the rapid introduction of a potentially transformative technology, namely nanotechnology. Part One of this thesis explores how the ‘narratives’ of nanotechnology differ in each region, particularly given their different bioethics contexts, and examines how specific concerns translate into policymaking. In questioning whether Eastern and Western approaches to nanotechnology governance can be aligned, one can observe that Europe is increasingly cooperating and competing with China. Such new interdependences between global actors require new global approaches to S&T policy, including ethical governance. Part Two of this thesis explores the concept of ‘global ethics’ and discusses the feasibility of a global approach. Given criticism of both universalism and relativism, it is often argued that a universal approach that takes sufficient account of local context cannot be developed. On the assumption that global ethics are achieved by global actors, this thesis looks at global agency. The thesis connects discourse ethics and participatory Technology Assessment (pTA), arguing that a version of Habermasian discourse ethics can provide a theoretical framework for dialogue between West and East. Discourse ethics has developed around Habermas’s argument that social order depends on our capacity to recognize, through rational discourse, the intersubjective validity of different views. Habermas asks the basic question of global ethics, of how different views (particularly of social order) can be universally recognized and agreed, perhaps within an 'ideal community' of communication, one that may be global. The thesis adds to Habermas’s discourse model, utilising virtue ethics as well as the work of, for example, Taylor, Beck, Korsgaard and others on identity formation. It is argued that the significant factor in global ethics is the formation of the agent’s moral identity, the formation of which requires one to go beyond one’s context, to achieve an intercultural personhood. Habermas (as do Taylor, Beck and others) suggests identity as a dual concept, reflecting an interdependence of society and one’s inner self. This would mean that one can understand the cultural biases inherent in any act of communication, while acting autonomously of such bias. If such a model of dual identity/agency can be applied to the intercultural dialogue on the governance of nanotechnology between East and West, it could potentially provide a new tool or model within pTA.

Coastal defences reduce sediment input and modify the sediment budget, usually resulting in a sediment deficit down-drift and an accumulation up-drift. This process results in set-back adjacent to defences. Three types of set-back were identified and these occur due to the: • terminal groyne effect, where defences stop or dramatically reduce erosion, induce a sediment deficit down-drift and cause an increase in retreat rate; • perceived terminal groyne effect, where defences stop or dramatically reduce erosion, and down-drift retreat rates remain the same or decrease; • initial groyne effect, where defences stop or dramatically reduce erosion, induce sediment accumulation up-drift and cause a decrease in retreat rate. Set-backs are found on defended coasts world-wide, and are complex evolving features dependent on numerous natural and anthropogenic factors. 200 set-back sites were identified in England and Wales, half on cliffed coasts. The terminal groyne effect theory was investigated on 17 sites on the soft cliffs of Holderness, Christchurch Bay and north-east Norfolk, UK, all of which erode naturally at 0.5m/yr-2.0m/yr. Historical shoreline analysis and a history of human intervention was undertaken for each study region and site. For 13 out of the 17 case studies, a terminal groyne effect appeared to have occurred. As time passed and the magnitude of set-back increased, the terminal groyne effect became increasingly apparent. Where increased retreat resulted, the coast was affected for tens to thousands of metres down-drift. For the remaining case studies, a perceived terminal groyne effect occurred. An initial terminal groyne effect occurred at all sites. Longshore, the continued set-back caused outflanking of defences prompting emergency works, such as repeated defence extensions up and down-drift. Over several decades of set-back, the defences formed an artificial headland and created a crenulate shaped embayment down-drift. The planform of an embayment expanded rapidly, then reduced to a steadier retreat rate. As shoreline management evolves from a highly defended to a less heavily managed coast, defence abandonment will result in rapid retreat. Set-backs may be created due to the juxtaposition of maintained and abandoned defences, as illustrated at Happisburgh, Norfolk. In the coming decades, set-backs, artificial headlands and the terminal groyne effect will remain important issues for shoreline management.

This thesis investigates a critical part of the Tethyan orogenic system in northern Greece and, based on new stratigraphic, structural, sedimentological and geochemical data, a new tectonic model for the area is proposed. The main unit investigated is the Païkon Massif which is situated centrally within the Vardar/Axios zone of the Internal Hellenides, which is part of the Alpine-Himalayan belt. The area is bounded to the west and east by ophiolitic units of the Almopias (western Vardar/Axios) and Peonias (eastern Vardar/Axios) subzones, respectively. During the break-up of the northern margin of Gondwana in the Permo-Triassic, the Païkon Massif formed the western margin of the Serbo-Macedonian continental unit, where a deep-water mixed carbonate-clastic slope succession (the Gandatch Formation) accumulated. At this time the Serbo-Macedonian zone was bordered to the west by the Triassic-Jurassic Almopias Ocean. Inferred onset of eastward subduction of the Almopias Ocean beneath the western margin of Serbo-Macedonia (Middle Jurassic) led to the eruption of Island Arc Tholeiites, which are basic to intermediate in composition at their base and become progressively more acidic upwards. A relatively wide Almopias Ocean is envisaged. Back-arc spreading is believed to have generated the Guevgueli back-arc basin (Peonias subzone) in the late-Middle to Late Jurassic, separating the Païkon Massif from its parent continent, leaving a remnant arc in its wake (the Chortiatis Group of the Circum-Rhodope zone). Continued subduction culminated in collision of the Pelagonian continental unit with the southern margin of Eurasia. Regional contractional (Eohellenic) deformation ensued and emplaced the Guevgueli Ophiolite westward onto the Païkon Massif. Deep burial of the Païkon Massif at this time is recorded by blueschist to upper greenschist facies mineral assemblages and pervasive ductile folding and fabric development.