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 […]
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Marketing people use the phrase ‘must see’ with abandon these days: but with regard to this play, it’s an exhortation for anyone at all interested in education...
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‘Why are they wearing business suits?’ whispered my young companion in the opening scenes of the Unicorn Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest...
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A book for teenagers about bridge? This is a risk, a real risk, as Louis Sachar, celebrated author of Holes, admits in his introduction to his new novel The Cardturner...
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Inside My Head by Jim Carrington Published by Bloomsbury At last, a book that doesn’t tell a tale of vampires lands on my desk! Inside My Head is the debut novel of teacher Jim Carrington.
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We live in interesting times. since the last issue of Ink Pellet we’ve had the sats boycott, the general election, a new coalition love-in government, new leaders, a new department and a new set of education policies. The Ks 2 sats boycott was amazing. that the nUt voted to boycott sats was hardly headline grabbing, […]
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A major new exhibition explores the war years of Pablo Picasso. Lesley Finlay and Joanne Baldwin take a look…
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This term we are giving you the chance to win Clive Barker's super book Theatre Games: A new approach to drama training, which will give you loads of ideas to encourage students to develop their technique naturally...
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It is the story of one Thomas Cale who lives in the Great Sanctuary of the Redeemers although there is very little sanctuary and even less redemption!
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Life is all about timing and playwright Jonathan Harvey knows a thing or two about it – in terms of comedy, of course.
