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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Haruka Kuroda is an intimacy and combat specialist who worked on the recent BBC TV drama, Sherwood as well as on stage shows such as Starcrossed at Wilton’s Music Hall and The Lesson at Southwark Playhouse. Susan Elkin chatted to her. You’re an actor and voice over artist as well as fight and intimacy director. […]
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Roderick – Roddy – Williams is an internationally renowned baritone, composer and teacher. He sings opera, oratorio and songs from various eras in concerts. Susan Elkin chatted to him. Roddy Williams is a very busy man. One of the best-known baritones of his generation, he’s on Radio 3 almost daily either because his many recordings […]
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Following up on our feature about small pub venues from the last issue, Susan Elkin went to discover how Upstairs at the Gatehouse continues to thrive. John and Katy Plews had always wanted to run a theatre of their own. So, once they felt they had sufficient experience they started to look at possibilities all […]
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Like David Storey (1933-2017) whom he admired greatly, Barney Norris, 35, is both a playwright and novelist. Susan Elkin met him. As Barney Norris writes in two genres, I thought a bookshop would be the right place to meet. So we’re sitting congenially over coffee (him) and tea (me) in the basement café at Waterstones […]
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Blown away by the Cornelia Parker exhibition at Tate Britain, Graham Hooper implores you not to miss this event. I’m going to begin by saying that I think Cornelia Parker, whose work is surveyed at Tate Britain in London until October this year, is, in my opinion, the nation’s greatest living artist. That’s a big […]
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Following a successful pilot phase that began in Autumn 2021, the National Theatre’s Speak Up programme will work with young people in 15 secondary schools in Greater Manchester across the next three years. Speak Up is the NT’s new national programme which sees young people, who have been most affected by the pandemic, working in collaboration with local […]
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With years of experience behind her, Susan Elkin discusses the art of a theatre critic. I see an average of four to five shows a week. And I review them – as keen readers of Ink Pellet will be aware – here and elsewhere. They range from one person shows in fringe theatres to big musicals. […]
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The Crucibleedited by Soyica Diggs Colbert Death of a Salesmanedited by Claire Conceison A View from the Bridgeedited by Julie Vatain-Corfdir Badged as “student texts” these three new Methuen Drama editions of Arthur Miller plays include extensive fore-notes. Each is effectively a study guide and play text combined. They are, however, without all that banal […]
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James Camp, 30, is an actor who co-founded Half Cut Theatre in 2020. It’s a touring company working mostly in East Anglia and the southeast. Susan Elkin chatted to him. What first drew you to acting? Well, I grew up in South Cambridgeshire, where my parents still live, and was inspired by my aunty who’s […]
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Kenny Wax is one of the country’s leading theatre producers with Six and The Show Goes Wrong series under his belt among many other productions. Susan Elkin meets him. Kenny Wax, 54, is a very focused man. Yes, the pandemic has made his life quite difficult, but the long gap means, he tells me, that […]