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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Finding new ways to sustain revenues, support actors and provide content for schools, Blackeyed Theatre has been quick to evolve and find creative solutions to survive the pandemic. Adrian McDougall gives us an insight. It’s a bit of a cliché but when times are hard, creativity thrives. And for those working in the arts, the […]
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Graeae, a cutting edge disabled-led company, has launched Beyond: a new initiative designed to remove barriers and transform the careers of Deaf and Disabled artists across the country. Susan Elkin is our guide. Eight regional theatres have signed up to offer development support, advice, training, mentoring and the use of creative spaces at every stage […]
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Funny, tender and painfully awkward, Romantics Anonymous is a delicious love story about breaking the mould and finding the courage to be happy. Emma Rice discusses the production After the disappointmentof the Romantics Anonymous tour being cancelled how does it feel to share the work again, in an albeit slightly different way than expected? It’s hard to […]
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As schools return for the autumn term, Susan Elkin looks at how ‘lockdown learning’ has adapted and whether new methods learnt can be incorporated into teaching practices. 2020 has become the year in which innovation and technology has driven learning. There has been criticism of teachers who have allegedly sat at home and done little. […]
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Susan Elkin took a virtual tour around the wide array of courses on offer at the Midlands Academy of Dance and Drama, Nottingham. In 1967 Frances Clayton founded the Midlands Academy of Dance & Drama (known affectionately as ‘MADD’) to provide dance classes for children and young people in Nottingham. She is still its principal. […]
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Braving the elements, but enjoying the lack of crowds, Graham Hooper guides through a couple of nature-inspired exhibitions
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Talking Heads – BBC iPlayer Review by Susan ElkinIt was an inspiration to recreate during lockdown the series of twelve monologues which Alan Bennett wrote for TV in 1998. The original series – and the printed text – will be very familiar to many secondary English and Drama teachers as a way of teaching what monologues...
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Amber has an abusive, drunken father and a terrified mother who works in a menial, low paid job. Neither of her illiterate parents speak English. An arranged marriage, like her sister’s, will be Amber’s future rather than the higher education she craves...
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Susan Elkin makes a strong case for preserving and integrating arts opportunities in schools.
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Actress, playwright and author of a new young adult novel, Run, Rebel, Manjeet Mann who founded Run the World, a non-profit making organisation which works with women and girls from marginalised backgrounds and helps to empower them through sport and storytelling. Susan Elkin chats to her.