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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Rooted in the concept of performance poetry Boys Don’t presents three gut-wrenching monologues exploring the idea that boys and men really do need to be able to express their feelings – by crying, if necessary. As one of them asserts firmly “Sometimes boys cry”. Each man – yes, it’s an all male cast and justifiably […]
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Jamie Lloyd’s production of Roddy Doyle’s smash hit novel-cum-movie hits the road in its first UK tour, following a couple of years at London’s Palace Theatre. Re-directed for the road by Caroline J Ranger, it’s a pretty disappointing evening overall. For the uninitiated, the loose plot follows Dublin music obsessive Jimmy Rabbitte (Andrew Linnie) as […]
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by Lucy Kerbel Published by Nick Hern Books Over the years, the theatre industry has often come in for criticism for its male gender bias. And while gender equality has improved in society over the last decade, Lucy Kerbel, founder and director at Tonic Theatre, and author of 100 great plays for women, suggests that […]
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by David Crystal Published by Oxford The verb ‘to be’ is the commonest in any language. That’s why it is invariably irregular: I am, you are, he is or je suis, tu es, il est and so on. This intriguing book, smilingly subtitled “A verb’s eye view of the English Language” examines said verb and […]
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by Jane Mitchell Published by Little Island, 2017 Endorsed by Amnesty International, this is – effectively – docu-fiction. Everthing in it is based on the sorts of horrifying experiences Syrian families are dealing with every day. It’s graphic beautiully imagined and works as fiction without feeling remotely “worthy”. Ghalib and his family leave their home […]
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by Jeannette Nelson Published by National Theatre Voice is to an actor what legs are to an Olympic runner – an essential, indispensable work tool. So if you use your voice to earn your living as actors do then you need to look after it and this book coaches the reader through how to do […]
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by Jenny McLachlan Published by Bloomsbury 2017 Meg is a self-confessed geek. She loves astronomy, is academically and scientifically very bright and knowledgeable. She wants to be an astronaut – and probably will be. She is also a teenager, mortified by the low level bullying she tolerates at school but imperceptibly developing feelings she doesn’t […]
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Jenny McLachlan is the author of a series of four books called Ladybirds. Her latest is a standalone. Stargazing for Beginners presents a girl passionate about astronomy and wanting to be an astronaut – as well as managing her life as a teenager with a problem or two. Susan Elkin spoke to her. How did […]
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by Robert Alan Evans Published by Samuel French Three short, experimental and heat-warming plays are tucked into this tome that could be used by both drama and English teachers, as well as youth theatre groups. Very different in content and tone, each one appeals to experiences that will be familiar to young audiences. Pondlife, created […]
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by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff Published by Oneworld Publications This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do. This afternoon, her planet was invaded. The year is 2575, and two rival mega-corporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at […]