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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Enhancing their services, Susan Elkin enquired about the launch of a new app by Music Theatre International, offering an interactive digital rehearsal notebook specially tailored for the UK. Anyone who has ever put on a school production of an established show will know that the first thing you have to do is to find out […]
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Susan Elkin was invited to The Bamboo House, Fourth Monkey’s new regional training centre in Bristol and jumped at the chance to discover more. “This is one of the best decisions I have ever made” says Rosie who is talking to me in a comfortable meeting room at Fourth Monkey’s new training centre, The Bamboo […]
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Evan Placey’s adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde, produced by National Theatre is currently touring secondary schools. Susan Elkin caught up with the playwright. Evan Placey and I have history. I last interviewed him for Ink Pellet six years ago in a chain coffee shop in Catford. Just for old times’ sake we’ve met in the […]
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Drawn to the Royal Academy for its latest major exhibition, Graham Hooper was captivated by the paintings of Francis Bacon. IMAGE ABOVE: Francis Bacon, Second Version of Triptych 1944, 1988 Oil paint and acrylic paint on 3 canvases, 198 x 147.5 cm (each) Tate: Presented by the artist 1991 © The Estate of Francis Bacon. […]
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To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the 20th century’s most important novels. Published in 1960, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, it stated firmly that black lives matter very much – eight years before the death of Martin Luther King and 60 years before the death of George Floyd. Yes, the issues are still […]
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by Beth Underdown Published by Penguin Random House This novel has been widely dubbed a homage to Daphne du Maurier. Yes, there are fires and houses and we’re in Cornwall. Beyond that I didn’t find too much similarity although it would be a good wider reading recommendation for A level students who are studying Rebecca. […]
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Toby Olié’s puppetry (see our interview on page 26) are what this show will be remembered for. If life sized puppets are to live, they must never be still. Designed and directed by Olié these jointed creations are magnificently controlled by a team of fourteen skilled puppeteers, they move continuously in a convincingly equine, canine, […]
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Toby Olié created and directed the puppets for Animal Farm which is currently touring nationwide. Susan Elkin spoke to him. How did you get into puppetry? I enjoyed Sesame Street as a child because the puppets exist within a human world and no one thinks anything of it. Then when I was eight years old […]
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Isobel McArthur wrote, appears in, and co-directs Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) which is running at the Criterion Theatre in London. Susan Elkin met her. They are rehearsing in an additional understudy. And I sit at the back of the empty stalls and watch the meticulous work until there’s a short “tea break” and Isobel […]
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Chickenshed’s new spring show, The Washing Line, opens in March and explores the world of cults, through the story of Jim Jones and The People’s Temple, its ideals and aims and, ultimately, its horrific end. “We were looking for a better world. We found a nightmare” The cast includes 150 students, studying on Chickenshed’s inclusive […]