Stephen Griffiths

Course Director

Senior Lecturer, Creative Industries

Stephen has worked in education for nearly 30 years and his teaching and scholarly activity addresses the different contextual relationships within film, broadcast media and performance platforms.

He is passionate about students being aware of their role as creative practitioners to connect, promote, and transform others’ experiences. He has contributed to a number of broadcast productions as a researcher and writer, including documentary films for the BBC and Channel 4, and most recently wrote about the careers of 'unsung' actors and performers in film, television and radio. As a media expert he has taken part in many live and recorded programmes covering topics ranging from the appeal of television soaps to early gay rights pioneers.

Stephen is a member of the Royal Television Society and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He has also worked as an External Examiner for Film Production/Film, Radio and Television courses, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Professional memberships and activities

Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA)
Royal Television Society (RTS)
British Music Hall Society
Actors Trust/The Actors’ Benevolent Fund
The Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA)

Academic qualifications

Senior Fellow, Higher Education Academy (SFHEA)
MA Media & Cultural Studies Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE)
BA (Hons) Film, Television & Radio Studies (First Class)

Expertise

Television and radio history
Acting and performance for live and recorded media
LGBT+ representation in British media
Science Fiction drama; children’s broadcasting
Television drama and situation comedy
Light entertainment, music hall and variety theatre
BBC radio comedy
Media heritage and memorabilia collecting

Research interests

Film, media and communications teaching
Broadcast pioneers
Media acting and performance
Drama and documentary practices
Media influencer-practitioners
Reflective production practices
Media entertainment

Teaching

Teaching covers documentary and drama
Collaborative creative industries
Creative media fundamentals
Media contexts
Client filmmaking
Creative heritage and creative industry professional practices.

Publications

Researcher/writer, Doctor Who UNIT Special, Panini UK/BBC, December 2025.

Researcher/writer, Doctor Who Cybermen: The Ultimate Guide, Panini UK/BBC, August 2025.

Researcher, Time And Tide, BBC 90m documentary film, December 2024.

Writer, ‘Personally Speaking – ‘Pride is as important now as it always was’’, Weekend Sentinel, June 2024.

Research writer, ‘Dursley McLinden – a career résumé’, Manx Museum, Douglas, Isle of Man, profiling the actor who was the influence for It’s A Sin (C4/HBO), February 2023.

Journal chapter writer, ‘Making Picture Shows’, TARDIS, July 2020.

Documentary researcher/archive consultant, The Jon Pertwee Files, 60m audio documentary for centenary of actor Jon Pertwee (1919-96), BBC Radio 4Extra, July 2019.

Presenter, ‘How to develop your own Podcast for business’, Factory Creative Industries Business Development Programme/European Regional Development Fund's England Operational Programme/Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce/City of Stoke-on-Trent, June 2018.

Paper presenter, ‘Serious offences with male persons’: the media representation of the ‘forgotten’ gay campaigner Peter Wildeblood’, 50 Years Since Decriminalisation, Keele University, February 2017.

Other research and scholarly outputs include contributions to BFI’s Screenonline, Directors in British and Irish Cinema ed. by Robert Murphy (BFI), BBC documentary A Dandy and a Clown, presenter/interviewer for Grange Hill Memories (Comedy Club, London) and the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow. Also the curation of a number of LGBT+ history exhibitions.