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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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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By Somalia Seaton Published by Nick Hern Books I was pleased when the Ink Pellet editor asked me to review Red by Somalia Seaton. The book is part of Nick Hern Book’s Platform series, plays specially commissioned by Lucy Kerbel from Tonic Theatre, a strong advocate for enhancing opportunities for young females in the theatre. […]
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By Matt Killeen Published by Usborne Sarah, 15, is – or becomes – all three things in the title. It’s a 1940s story but Matt Killeen’s debut young adult novel breaks fresh ground. We’re accustomed to seeing Jews portrayed as supine victims and of course the images move most of us deeply. Sarah is different. […]
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By Andrew Norriss Published by David Fickling Books This is a very strong idea for a young adult novel. For a few pages you think it’s going to be a boring homage to tennis and only likely to interest tennis fanatics, then you realise that it’s actually about mental health, life choices, families and it’s very […]
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by Mark Wheeller, with Scheme of Work by Karen Latto. The opening epitomises just how personal and emotive Drama is an art form and the very topic of anorexia is approached with a caring and thoughtful mind-set – the very way every teacher delivering this play would need to approach it. Mark Wheeller is someone […]
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by Abigail Rokison-Woodall Published by Bloomsbury Awarm welcome to the first three titles in a very useful series of new Shakespeare editions. If you need the finer points of editorial and academic debate Arden editions have long been the ones to turn to. But for actors and performers such editions can be cluttered and unfriendly. So […]
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by West End Producer Published by Nick Hern Books Published late autumn this was definitely the best theatre book of 2017 and I suspect it will be unsurpassed this year too. Written in the same wickedly dead-pan tone as his earlier Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Acting (But were too sloshed to ask […]
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By Jonathan FS Post Published by Oxford University Press This little book, part of a huge series of Very Short Introductions, is a surprisingly detailed and scholarly starting point for anyone beginning to study Shakespeare’s non-stage work. We casually refer to Shakespeare as the “greatest poet in the English language” with some justification but, Post […]
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By Oliver Ford Davies Published by Bloomsbury Have you ever noticed just how many apparently single parent fathers there are in Shakespeare? Prospero, Capulet, Lear, Leonato, Egeus, Shylock et al. Of course, Ford Davies has played most of them. That means that he’s worked with many interesting young female actors such as Mariah Gales who […]