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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Piers Torday, 45, is the adaptor of A Christmas Carol and The Box of Delights for stage as well as the author of eight children’s novels. Susan Elkin chats to him.
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Paul Fincham is a composer whose carol Ring The Bells will be sung in concerts all over the country this Christmas and whose opera The Happy Princess got good reviews last summer. Susan Elkin meets him.
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Susan Elkin met with Theatre Peckham AD Suzann Mclean, discovering this hub has much to offer Founded 33 years ago, Theatre Peckham is an unsung jewel tucked away in the back streets of Southwark about ten minutes walk from Peckham Rye station and close to the centre of Camberwell. Mountview Academy, one of the country’s […]
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Fourth Monkey Actor Training Company announces accredited BA (Hons) Acting course and the introduction of audition fee wavers for all. Fourth Monkey Actor Training Company, founded in 2010 enters its tenth year in 2020, and to mark this milestone, the highly acclaimed School is validating its Two-Year actor training programme in partnership with TEF Gold […]
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Lou Stein, AD at Chickenshed, chats to Susan Elkin about his achievements and aspirations for this life-changing arts centre Nearly four years ago Lou Stein was appointed artistic director and chief executive at Chickenshed, the famously inclusive, diverse North London producing company which functions as a higher/further education college as well as a youth theatre. […]
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For over 50 years, East 15 has produced actors, directors, theatre practitioners and technicians. Expanding its range of courses, Susan Elkin looks at the new BA (Hons) in Physical Theatre. East 15 Acting School, founded by Margaret Bury in 1961 grew out of the work of Joan Littlewood’s famous Theatre Workshop based Theatre Royal Stratford. There’s now […]
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Two contrasting exhibitions caught the eye of our Graham Hooper He shaves with an old school razor, using a paint brush to apply the soap. The photograph, taken of Lucian Freud, grandson of Sigmund, who did in 2011, accompanies the first information board as you enter the Royal Academy’s exhibition. His long-time assistant David Dawson […]
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Susan Elkin explores the various options now available to students looking for actor training. It’s always been a minefield. There you are quietly about to mark a pile of essays having dismissed the class and a student sidles up to you. “I want to be an actor. What do I have to do?” Any teacher […]
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An annual tradition or perhaps the first visit to the theatre, going to a Christmas show should be a truly memorable experience. Susan Elkin has some pointers. No. It isn’t behind you. It’s all before you. As Ink Pellet goes to press the Christmas Show season is about to get underway. Teachers, teaching assistants, parents, […]
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Brian Friel’s best known play transports us to 1830s Ireland where the British army, assisted by local civilians, are creating an Ordnance Survey map, clumsily “anglicising” the place names as they go. Education is a major theme. Local people attend Hedge Schools, effectively evening classes run by a teacher in his own home – one […]