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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Ihave to admit I was slightly on edge when I arrived at the Halifax Square Chapel to see an immersive version of The Great Gatsby. “You can dress up and dance (if you want!) or simply sit at the bar and be absorbed into Gatsby’s 1920s world!” encouraged the glossy invite. Immersive theatre seems to […]
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No wonder this is such a popular play to study with students. Timberlake Wertenbaker’s best known work celebrates the transformational power of theatre as a group of 18th century convicts arrive in New South Wales, brutalised by both the voyage and the Marines in charge of them, and – eventually – stage a performance of […]
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Choreographed by Antonio Castilla, this is the latest abridged ballet for young children danced by English National Ballet School students. The Spanish, Hungarian and Italian dances in Act 2 are high spots. The two girls who did the Italian dance at the performance I saw had a real lightness of touch which highlighted the humour. […]
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Over 150 Kent primary and secondary school pupils came together to present this collaborative version of Julius Caesar under the auspices of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Associate Schools Programme for which the Marlowe Theatre is a partner. The play (abridged to under two hours including an interval) is divided into eleven sections with each school […]
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Published by Bloomsbury Annie, the narrator, has cerebral palsy. She can walk short distances but uses a wheelchair for convenience. All her life she has fought – and fought hard – to be seen as Annie rather than as a disabled person. She’s feisty, very bright and good fun. The novel opens as she starts […]
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Published by Nick Hern Books In the early 1990s, Anna Deavere Smith, an American actress and playwright raised eyebrows with two plays; 92’s Fires in the Mirror and 94’s Twilight: Los Angeles, based on riots that took place in New York (1991) and Los Angeles (1992) respectively. Deavere Smith interviewed those who were part of […]
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Published by Nick Hern Books Actor Anthony Sher rose to prominence in 1984 after playing Richard III with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His performance won him the Laurence Olivier award that year, and he has since gone on to play lead roles in Macbeth, Tamburlaine and Stanley, the latter earning also earning an Olivier. Sher’s […]
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Published by David Fickling Books I’m not usually much drawn to novels with very remote settings but this coming of age story takes us to medieval Japan and it’s a real page turner. Ryo is the son of an accomplished potter. When he meets a gentle, hugely intelligent, charismatic soldier, he decides that he wants […]
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Singer, actor, composer and writer Natasha Sutton Williams, 29, is co-founder of the theatre company, Working Birthday. Her one woman show Freud the Musical ran to great acclaim in the recent Vaults Festival and will be part of the Reading Festival in July. Susan Elkin caught up over a coffee. Where do you come from? I can’t […]