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 […]
Book Review
Ink Pellet’s book review section covers an eclectic selection of new fiction, teachers’ guides, audio books and classics.
Many of our reviews are written by teachers, so we have an expert eye on how texts will work in the classroom. We hope to create a useful archive of reviews so that you can use this as a reference.
If you would like to join our panel of reviewers, please join in or email the editor john@inkpellet.co.uk.
We hope the section inspires you to share new fiction with your pupils or to revisit old favorites yourself.
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by Tania UnsworthPublished by Zephyr Elsie is sent to stay with her rather odd, and very old, Great Uncle John because her parents are working. She finds a tiger skin rug in his spare room and a strange plant in his greenhouse. Suddenly she is transported to India in 1946 where John, then 12, is […]
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By Sarah Klymkiw & Kim HankinsonPublished by Egmont Books Did you know that the fashion industry accounts for more than 8% of global climate impact which is greater than all international flights and sea shipping combined? No, neither did I and – as a compulsive clothes buyer – it certainly made me stop and think. […]
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Published by Bloomsbury With the subtitle “Magical Poems” this slim hard back book has a delightfully old fashioned feel of permanence about it – and it’s pleasant to hold in the hand. Anthologist, Paul Cookson, has included a wide range of poems from Shakespeare (the witchy bit, obviously) to Benjamin Zephaniah and from Tennyson (The […]
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By Jenny McLachlanPublished by Egmont This is a sequel to McLachlan’s earlier Land of Roar and there’s a third title in the pipeline. I read it, though, as a standalone and that works because she sets up the situation very adeptly at the beginning. Think Peter Pan (we meet the Lost Girls) crossed with Narnia […]
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The English oratorio was, it seems, born almost by accident. Handel’s Esther, the first known example of the genre, began life as a masque in a Middlesex mansion in around 1718 . It reappeared in London in 1731. These were private performances, staged and in costume. Then, in 1732 – partly because Princess Anne wanted to...
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This book poses one of those intriguing “what if?” questions beloved of historians. Had, Princess Charlotte, the only legitimate daughter of the Prince Regent (later George IV) not died in childbirth in 1817, she would have become Queen. We would not have had Queen Victoria and the course of history would have looked quite different...
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Amber has an abusive, drunken father and a terrified mother who works in a menial, low paid job. Neither of her illiterate parents speak English. An arranged marriage, like her sister’s, will be Amber’s future rather than the higher education she craves...
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By Ghislaine KenyonPublished by Bloomsbury Arguably there should be a copy of this book on every Head Teacher’s desk. In 134 pages it sets out the case for primary school arts in an accessible, jargon-free way with lots of case studies. The first chapter details the reasons why the arts matter. The other five chapters […]
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by Allie Esiri Publishedby Macmillan This is one of the best, most uplifting non-fiction books I’ve seen for many months. Following the format of her earlier A Poem for Every Day of the Year and A Poem for Every Night of the Year, Allie Esiri provides an extract of Shakespeare, preceded by a succinct, upbeat […]
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By Michael BrayPublished by Nick Hern Books Yet another good title in NHB’s So you want to … series, this book will help fill in gaps for students who think their training is selling them short. It would also be a good basic introduction for any student or actor just embarking on screen actor training. […]