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 Matt Haig Published by Canongate When I interviewed Matt Haig for September’s edition of Ink Pellet I was struck by the writer’s belief in the power of story-telling and how it can help young people understand the fragility of life. His fiction (Matt writes for both children and adults) pushes the boundary of the form […]
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By Anne Cassidy Published by Hot Key Books The powerful companion to No Virgin, from the author of the critically acclaimed Looking for JJ, shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize in 2004 and the Carnegie Medal in 2005. 17-year-old Stacey Woods has been raped and now she has to go through a different ordeal – the […]
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By Jessica Swale and Lois Jeary Published by NHB Blue Stockings, which premiered to a lot of praise at The Globe in 2013, was director Jessica Swale’s first play. It details and explores the experience of four fictional young women who went up to Girton College, Cambridge in the 1890s. This was decades before women […]
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By Stanley Wells Published by Oxford University Press Subtitled “from Burbage to Branagh” this book – which manages to be both scholarly and entertaining – introduces us to the finest exponents of Shakespeare across four centuries. I agree with Roy Hattersley that the ever-prolific Stanley Wells is certainly “our greatest authority on Shakespeare’s life and […]
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Inspire your students through film at the Into Film Festival, 8th – 24th November 2017
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by Thomasina Unsworth Published by Nick Hern Books Thomasina Unsworth spent a decade working in theatre and television having graduated from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and now oversees Acting and Acting Musicianship courses at Rose Bruford College. She is ideally placed then, to share remedies of how to get a […]
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by Nicholas Hytner Publisher: Jonathan Cape Director of the National Theatre from 2003 to 2015, Nicholas Hytner arrived in post needing some commercial successes so that the NT could also stage riskier works and keep afloat even as public funding lessened. During his tenure NT produced History Boys, War Horse, The Curious Incident of the Dog […]
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by Christopher Paolini Published by Corgi Childrens Eragon is a story based in a magical world full of wonder and fright. Many years ago there were people called ‘riders’ and they each had their very own dragon. However in the present day of this book, the only rider left is the king Galbatorix. The […]
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by Jeff Kinney Published by Puffin The opening of the story got me interested straightaway because it was direct and straight to the point: ‘Mum suddenly announced. Pack your bags, we’re going on a road trip’ so I was very keen to read on and find out how the road trip went. The events […]
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Book Review: THE MAZE RUNNER by James Dashner Published by Chicken House This book is about a boy called Thomas and how he adapts to his new surroundings in a giant maze. At the beginning, he arrives in the maze, his memory is wiped in an elevator and is thrown into the middle of the maze […]