Panel of Judges

Gregory Doran has been described as “one of the great Shakespearians of his generation” (The Sunday Times). He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company as an actor in 1987, and became its Artistic Director in 2012, stepping down a decade later.

He initiated the “Live From Stratford-upon-Avon” programme – broadcasting to cinemas around the world, and streaming into UK schools for free. Notable productions include Antony & Cleopatra with Harriet Walter and Patrick Stewart, Hamlet and Richard II with David Tennant, All’s Well that Ends Well with Judi Dench, and a digitally pioneering production of The Tempest with Simon Russell Beale. His production of Julius Caesar with an all-Black British cast was described by Michael Billington as one the ten best productions in the 60-year history of the RSC.

Greg’s long relationship with his late husband, Sir Antony Sher, produced many acclaimed productions, including Titus Andronicus, Macbeth, The Winter’s Tale, Othello, Henry IV (Parts 1&2) and King Lear.

He is an honorary senior research fellow of the Shakespeare Institute, a trustee of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and an honorary associate of the British Shakespeare Association. Greg’s recent work includes Richard III, with Arthur Hughes, (the first disabled actor to play the role for the RSC), and Cymbeline, which marked his 50th production for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

He is currently on a quest to see as many extant copies of the First Folio across the globe as he can.

Greg’s latest book My Shakespeare : A Director’s Journey Through the First Folio was published by Bloomsbury in April 2023.

Stuart Hunt, panel chair, is Director of University Library and Collections and University Librarian at Durham University.  He joined the University in December 2023.  In his role he has leadership responsibility for the strategic and operational management of the University’s Libraries and Collections.  This encompasses the University’s libraries, museums and galleries, archives and special collections.  He has been a librarian for 30 years and has held a proven track record of strategic leadership, digital transformation and building external partnerships.  Stuart has previously held a number of senior positions in UK universities, most recently as Director of University Library & Collections Services and University Librarian at the University of Reading.  Prior to this he worked in senior leadership roles in both Russell Group and post-1992 university libraries in the UK.  He is active, externally serving, or having served, on a number of national and international committees and boards for libraries. He has published articles and given conference papers on content strategy; process improvement; post-pandemic planning in libraries, and; libraries, sustainability and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Dominic’s binding work is mostly the restoration of antiquarian books and the creation of artistic bindings to commission. He has won many prizes in the Designer Bookbinders competition, including both first prizes and the Mansfield Silver Medal in 2007. He was elected a Fellow of Designer Bookbinders in 2008. In 2013 he won first prize — the Sir Paul Getty award — in Designer Bookbinders’ International Bookbinding Competition and spent two years travelling around the world with the exhibition.

His bindings are in collections worldwide, including the British Library, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the St Bride Library, all in London, the John Rylands Library in Manchester, the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the Grolier Club in New York the San Francisco Public Library.

He spends part of the year teaching masterclasses across the USA, and has conducted teaching tours in Australia, New Zealand and Brazil. He has his bindery in Cheshire, from where he travels across the UK teaching and lecturing.

Dominic co-founded the bookbinding program at the San Francisco Center for the Book, the Society of Bookbinders’ Seminar, the SoB/DB joint workshops, and Book Camp UK. He is an accredited lecturer with the Arts Society, Patron of the Association of Book Crafts (NZ), and past President of both the Hand Bookbinders of California and of the Society of Bookbinders.

Emma teaches at Hertford College, University of Oxford, where she specialises in Shakespeare – and in particular, the reception of his works in print, performance, and criticism. She’s most interested in why we think what we do about Shakespeare, and the cultural uses to which his works have been put at different historical moments including our own. Her recent books include Shakespeare’s First Folio: Four Centuries of an Iconic Book (2023), This Is Shakespeare (2019) and Portable Magic: A History of Books and their Readers (2022). And this is her dog, Nan – who doesn’t seem interested in Shakespeare or in books, but perhaps that’s for the best.

Danielle is the Rare Books Curator at Palace Green Library, Durham University Library and Collections. Her role ranges from acquiring new rare and early printed books to enabling intellectual and physical access to the collections, including the internationally significant seventeenth-century library built by Bishop John Cosin. With a background in historic libraries, she is interested in how the book as object functions within the domestic and public space, and what books tell us about ourselves. For Danielle, each book is a unique object with a history of its own, which is why she is really excited to be on the judging panel for Durham University’s first ever bookbinding competition. How will bookbinders respond to creating a binding for a facsimile of one of the most iconic books in the English language, the first folio of William Shakespeare’s dramatic works?