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Playwright Evan Placey chats to Susan Elkin about his Canadian roots, challenging writing and his concerns for the future of drama in schools Within a couple of minutes of our meeting, playwright Evan Placey and I are chatting comfortably about his partner Daniel and life in south London with the little boy (now 20 months) […]
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Once upon a time, in 1981, there were two men, a woman and a passion for theatre. Oily Cart, which specialises in theatre for young children and for those with special needs and disabilities (SEND) was on the way. Tim Webb shares memories and reflections with Susan Elkin in celebration of the company’s 35th anniversary. […]
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Susan Elkin visits Arnhem Wharf Primary, a school committed to the arts, and is inspired by seeing the Ex Cathedra Choir in rehearsal I’m sitting in a classroom at the attractively light, bright and modern Arnhem Wharf Primary School on the Isle of Dogs in Tower Hamlets on a spring Monday morning. 30 eight and […]
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Adrian McDougall, Yvonne Stone and Eliot Guiralarocca talk to Susan Elkin about Blackeyed Theatre and its forthcoming new show, Frankenstein. “We specialise in touring small scale shows to venues all over the country” says Adrian McDougall who founded Bracknell-based Blackeyed Theatre Company in 2004. The company has just completed a successful six month tour of […]
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Not all drama schools are the same. Susan Elkin takes a peek inside Fourth Monkey’s new premises to discover a communal hub with a strong vocational drive. Stage smoke, sinister lights, shadow work, love, murder, a naked man, revenge, a castration, a female protagonist, glee, lust and much more. Welcome to the murky world […]
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Graham Hooper leads us through several of the major photography exhibitions running in London and finds he sees the world differently as a result
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A verbatim play written by Mark Wheeller using the testimonies of Daniel Spargo-Mabbs’ friends and family. Premiere performance at The BRIT School, Tuesday 29th March 2016 In May 1997 Daniel Spargo-Mabbs was born. His parents, like every parent wondered what he will achieve, what job will he do? In January 2014 I was pregnant and my […]
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Based on the film written by Geoff Deane and Tim Firth, Kinky Boots is one of those gloriously English stories about (fairly) ordinary people overcoming human problems in an unlikely but theatrically spectacular way. It’s in the same tradition as The Full Monty and Brassed Off. It makes a gloriously vibrant musical and it’s hard […]
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Shakespeare rhymes ‘war’ with ‘jar’, ‘scar’, ‘afar’, and ‘bar’ in various plays and poems. Never does he rhyme it with ‘more’. That, of course, is because pronunciation changes continually (listen to 1940s radio broadcasts for evidence if you need it) and Shakespeare has been dead for 400 years. And, obviously, it was far from fixed […]
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Book Review of Much ado about Shakespeare, written and illustrated by Donovan Bixley.