this month's
Ink Pellet contains
A Final Haunt
After 33 extraordinary years, Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black will haunt the stage of the Fortune Theatre for the final time, as the production ends in the West End on Saturday 4th March 2023. PW Productions announce that after 33 extraordinary years in London’s West End, the theatrical sensation that is Susan Hill’s THE […]
Reaching for the Moon
Susan Elkin paid a visit to Half Moon theatre in London’s East End to chat with CEO Chris Elwell about their extensive education outreach and innovative theatre programmes. Half Moon Theatre sits in the heart of Limehouse in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, spitting distance from the DLR and mainline station. Formerly a pretty […]
National Youth Theatre Rep Company
The National Youth Theatre’s Rep Company is celebrating its first ten years and Susan Elkin paid a visit to learn more. Each year a group of fifteen or so talented NYT members, aged 18 to 25, are selected by audition to join this company. In just a few months they rehearse three shows, many of […]
Apprenticeships
An important and often overlooked route into the industry, especially for many non-performing roles. Susan Elkin has some suggestions. Theatre is like an iceberg. For every role on stage there are probably at least half a dozen technicians you can’t see. And the industry has been telling us for decades that there are skills shortages […]
School Shows
Never underestimate the power of a school production – for every single person involved. When you meet former students, sometimes from decades back in my case, it’s usually taking part in Oliver! or A Midsummer Night’s Dream that they reminisce about with shining eyes. Most importantly it’s a terrific bonding exercise. We hear a lot […]
New Perspectives
With three separate Lucian Freud exhibitions currently on, Graham Hooper took time to visit and here is his review of these contrasting shows. LLucian Freud would have been 100 this year, and that’s a good excuse to look back over his life and work, but especially his work, as the two have a rather nasty […]
Grandad Anansi – Half Moon Theatre
Predicated partly on Black History Month, Elayne Ogbeta’s muliti-layered play presents Grandad (Marcus Hercules) and his primary school age granddaughter, Abi (Jazmine Wilkinson) in his garden. Like everything else in this show, the garden designed by Sorcha Corcoran, is beautiful with lots of colour, light and plants that Grandad knows by name and talks to. […]
Theatre Review – The King of Nothing – Little Angel Theatre
Ben Glasstone’s charming, witty account of The Emperor Who Has No Clothes works well for two main reasons. First it is one of the most perceptive stories ever written, dealing as it does with vanity, self delusion, conformity and truth. It’s both topical and timeless. Second, we have a cost of living crisis and the […]
Book Review – Activist
by Louisa Reid Published by Guppy Books Cassandra, narrator of this powerful verse novel, is a reluctant sixth former in a prestigious mixed school, formerly all boys, where toxic culture simmers. Driven by her own experience, and by nature a feisty “shouter” she campaigns forcibly for acknowledgement that some of the boys at school treat […]
Book Review – A Poetry Pedagogy for Teachers: Reorienting Classroom Literacy Practice
by Maya Pindyck and Ruth Vinz, with Diana Liu and Ashlynn Wittchow The thrust of this detailed, well-researched, quite academic book about the poetry in classrooms is that we shouldn’t teach students to search for meaning so that “the poem becomes a specimen for examination under the microscope of interpretative practices”. Instead we should experience […]
Theatre Reviews
Our theatre reviews aim to bring you the latest and best performances of plays, dance and music. Ink Pellet celebrates the country’s vibrant regional theatres – from performances of the classics and set texts, to new plays that will inspire and support you.
Once again, we have a merry band of discerning teachers who visit plays in their town (sometimes earning themselves a free programme and interval drink)to review for the magazine.
We’ll also review something you might like – just for sheer pleasure! If you would like to join our panel of reviewers, please join in or email the editor john@inkpellet.co.uk.
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Sonny (Reece Pantry) has thrown himself under a train having had a rather strange relationship with a brittle, troubled woman who works in a launderette (Clare-Louise English). His mother (Shenagh Govan) and sister (Evlyne Oyedokun) are struggling to come to terms with his death, as is the devastated train driver (Stanley J Browne) who has […]
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An exceptionally compelling, intelligent adaptation of Jane Eyre, Nick Lane’s cast-of-five version stays remarkably true to Charlotte Bronte’s iconic novel. It retains the essence of the radical feminist philosophy which underpins the novel, but which is often sidelined by sentimentalist adaptors. Yes, of course the plot is simplified by leaving out or conflating minor characters, […]
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It’s techni-colourful and so tuneful that it really doesn’t matter much if the magic’s a bit thin and it sometimes feels a bit like a variety show strong on spectacular set pieces, but light on narrative focus. So rather than carping, swallow that spoonful of sugar with Mary (Zizi Strallen) rather than treacle and brimstone […]
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Brian Friel’s best known play transports us to 1830s Ireland where the British army, assisted by local civilians, are creating an Ordnance Survey map, clumsily “anglicising” the place names as they go. Education is a major theme. Local people attend Hedge Schools, effectively evening classes run by a teacher in his own home – one […]
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Spiegeltent, Chichester Festival Theatre Roy Williams grittily hard-hitting 2002 play about racist grooming and knife crime sits very well in a short season Spiegeltent configured as a circular pub by Joanna Scotcher’s set. Within the pub a disparate group meet, ostensibly, to watch the October 7th 2000 football match in which England played West Germany […]
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Gail Louw’s extraordinarily topical new play presents former (2009-2018) South African president Jacob Zuma (Andrew Francis) and white freedom fighter Ronnie Kasrils (Jack Klaff) as old men. I saw it in the week that it was announced that Zuma will face sixteen charges of fraud, racketeering and money laundering and the real Kasrils was in […]
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The best thing about this rather disappointing show is Michael Taylor’s imaginative set which makes lovely use of screens and to create a scientific lab (big tubes and vents right to the ceiling) a pub, a stately home and a lot more. Based on the 1951 film of the same name, The Man in the […]
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The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (named after a Goethe collection of poems) was founded in 1999 by world-renowned Argentinian conductor and pianist, Daniel Barenboim and with Edward Said. It comprises an equal number of Israeli and Arab musicians together with some from Turkey, Iran and Spain. Its aim is to promote equality, co-operation and justice for […]
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Beware spoiling a good show with too many pyrotechnics. By the end of this revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s 1978 piece I was hoping I wouldn’t have to see another firework, hear another celebratory explosion or smell another blast of stage smoke for a very long time. Jamie Lloyd’s take on Eva […]
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This show uses haunting music and evocative singing (by Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante) along with physical theatre to tell a powerful story....