Originally published - 22 July 1999

Wolverhampton man Paul Darke has just received his PhD in Film and Television Studies, from the University of Warwick, for his research into the portrayal of disability in post 1960 British cinema. Paul, himself a wheel chair user, has been looking at a number of films with disability as a central theme or with important disabled characters including Dr Strangelove, Duet for One, The Elephant Man, My Left Foot, Whose Life is it Anyway, The Rasin’s Moon and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. In Doctor Strangelove for instance the wheel chair based disability of the Doctor Strangelove character is used to portray a character as evil and vengeful.

Interest in his research has led him to appear on a number of TV and radio programmes and he has his own regular film columns in DAM and Link magazines. Paul has also served as a member of the selection panel of the Disability Arts Video Project and as a judge of a German film festival.