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.
-
By Margaret AttwoodPublished by Penguin Since its publication in September, Margaret Attwood’s long-awaited sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale has made literary history at least twice. It was the first book ever to be longlisted for the Booker prize before its publication and it was kept securely under wraps just as the later Harry Potter titles […]
-
By Bill BrysonPublished by Doubleday Because I did A level zoology at school along with a long defunct pre-nursing O level called Anatomy, Physiology and Hygiene – and have always avidly devoured newspaper reports of medical research and developments – I thought I had reasonable knowledge of how the human body works. Then I read […]
-
Published by Nick Hern Books Anyone who has ever worked with, or even met, veteran theatre director Peter Brook (see Lou Stein on p15 of this issue, for example) comments on his legendary, profoundly influential presence. That same humble, sometimes quirky, glittering charisma sings through his writing too. His latest book is a series of […]
-
By Jess Thorpe & Tashi GorePublished by Methuen Drama Theatre does not have to start with a script and a story given to the cast by someone else. Watch any group of children in a playground playing a make-believe game. The story is emerging as they play. Well slightly more formal theatre can, of course, […]
-
-
-
Playwriting – Structure, Character, How and What to Write By Stephen Jeffreys Published by NHB
-
The Collected Peter Pan By JM Barrie, Edited by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst Published by OUP
-
By René Weis Published by Oxford University Press Verdi’s 1853 opera La Traviata is based on La Dame aux Camelias, an 1848 novel by Alexandre Dumas which he reworked as a play in 1852. The inspiration for all of this was a French courtesan, named Marie Duplessis who shot from poverty to luxury and refinement […]
-
By Sharon Dogmar Published by Andersen Press The exceptionally clever but emotionally immature Mary Godwin was 16 when she met and eloped with Percy Byshe Shelley. He, of course, was already married. That makes her story the perfect subject for modern teenagers who might have got as far as their A levels at the age […]
