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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By Anne Cassidy Published by Hot Key Books The powerful companion to No Virgin, from the author of the critically acclaimed Looking for JJ, shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize in 2004 and the Carnegie Medal in 2005. 17-year-old Stacey Woods has been raped and now she has to go through a different ordeal – the […]
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By Jessica Swale and Lois Jeary Published by NHB Blue Stockings, which premiered to a lot of praise at The Globe in 2013, was director Jessica Swale’s first play. It details and explores the experience of four fictional young women who went up to Girton College, Cambridge in the 1890s. This was decades before women […]
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One turns to Kenneth Grahame’s masterpiece novel and adaptations of it for Edwardian nostalgia and that’s what this production delivers in spades. Julian “Downton” Fellowes provides an ungimmicky book and the songs from that talented Half a Sixpence duo, George Styles and Anthony Drewe have terrific fun with a range of song styles from Gilbert […]
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So what is a snark? Of course, Lewis Carroll, at the time of writing, left it for you and me to decide. Later in life he admitted it might be a metaphor for happiness. The four-year-old I chatted to after this excellent adaptation is sure that the snark is a magical bird. Either way Carroll’s […]
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Garsington’s triennial community opera aims to bring in participants and audience who might not usually have anything to do with opera. With an all-age cast of 180 (youngest child on stage appeared to be around a year old), Silver Birch, directed by Karen Gillingham, tells the story of Jack who served in Iraq, all set […]
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Katy Lipson, 32, has produced over 50 shows, mostly musical theatre. Few school and college students really understand what producing is and what a crucial part of the theatre industry it is. They could learn a lot from the hardworking Katy, as Susan Elkin discovers.
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By Stanley Wells Published by Oxford University Press Subtitled “from Burbage to Branagh” this book – which manages to be both scholarly and entertaining – introduces us to the finest exponents of Shakespeare across four centuries. I agree with Roy Hattersley that the ever-prolific Stanley Wells is certainly “our greatest authority on Shakespeare’s life and […]
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It’s a pity therefore that this production of a fine musical doesn’t always feel as sparky as it should. One senses that – the dancers in the wedding scene for instance – are still mentally reading their choreography notes. And far too many performers – Tracy-Ann Oberman as Golde for instance – have been cast […]
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The Royal Exchange Theatre is an iconic landmark in the heart of Manchester with a strong pedigree of plays and a close link to its schools and communities. Mark Glover spoke to the organisation’s new Director of Learning and Engagement Inga Hirst about reaching out to those beyond the bright lights of the city.
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Graham Hooper looks at the work of award-winning sculptor Rachel Whiteread, whose work is on show at Tate Britain from 12 Sept – 21 Jan