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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The INTO FILM Festival returns with 3000 free screenings and events from 9 – 25 November 2016 – Diversity, Wellbeing and Anti-Bullying are the key themes of world’s largest annual youth film festival A free trip to the cinema is once again on offer for schools all over the UK this Autumn as part of the […]
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The Roundhouse is a hub of inspiration in Camden where artists and emerging talent create extraordinary work and where young people can grow creatively as individuals. Susan Elkin takes us inside. Ashley Summercorn is head of arts at Camden Centre for Learning, the borough’s provision for students whose “primary need is their social, emotional or […]
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Susan Elkin pays a visit to Trinity Laban Conservatoire to discover song and dance training is anything but routine I’m sitting in a light, sparklingly bright modern building in Deptford chatting to Anthony Bowne, principal of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Dance and Drama. Formed in 2005 from a merger of the much older Trinity College […]
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Graham Hooper left the sanctuary of his garden this summer to visit two contrasting exhibitions of portraiture… At last, the Summer has arrived, and a chance to finally sit down for a while without interruption. I find my favourite chair, position it with care to make the most of the light, and stare into the […]
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Published by Andre Deutsch Books The Shakespeare Treasury is a fascinating collection of facts on Britain’s greatest playwright and insights into the enduring popularity of his work. Delving into the inspirations behind his masterworks and the influences of generations of performers, it reveals the incredible variety of ways Shakespeare’s plays have been adapted for stage […]
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The profession has bewailed the dearth of good female roles in Shakespeare for centuries. So what do you do about it? Simply forget gender and cast women in men’s roles. Enter Michelle Terry as a very powerful Henry once you see past her diminutive stature. At the beginning, during the Archbishop’s Sir Humphrey-style attempts to […]
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It isn’t often I see a show that really does deserve a standing ovation but Timothy Sheader’s immaculately directed, imaginative, sensitive new version of Jesus Christ Superstar is definitely on the list. A lone guitar begins to twang with louche sexiness at the opening of the overture – framed and lit on the top of […]
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Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason,17, became the BBC Young Musician of the Year in May when he wowed the judges with his account of the Shostakovich cello concerto number 1. Susan Elkin talks to him. What made you take up the cello? I was six. I was already learning piano and violin. The piano was fine but I […]
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SUSAN ELKIN is enchanted by the multi-faceted and prolific writer Adèle Geras, still writing – at her own pace – at the age of 72. Most interviewees elect to meet journalists on neutral territory such as a coffee shop, hotel or reserved space at a theatre or publisher’s. It is typical of the warmth and […]
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SUSAN ELKIN pays a visit to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School as part of its anniversary season to discover a thriving septuagenarian. It’s anniversary time in Bristol. 250 years ago, in 1776, the city’s Old Vic Theatre opened, probably now Britain’s oldest surviving theatre still in business. It has a long and illustrious history […]
