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 […]
Library
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 favourites yourself
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In our most recent installment from Digital Theatre+, leading education platform for English and the Performing Arts, we asked Alesha Tatum-Howe, Chair of the Fine Arts Department at Wakeland High School in Texas, to take us through her ideal playlist on DT+. The result is an indispensable guide for drama teachers looking for resources to […]
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Graham Hooper examines the relationship between political events and art, as reflected in the current exhibition at the British Museum. The centenary of the Russian Revolution is too good an opportunity to miss for art galleries, and rightly so; the impact in design, painting and sculpture, even architecture, is still felt today. That this year, […]
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Southwark, on the south side of the Thames in London, has attracted another leading arts organisation, with the RCSSD’s recently opened Bankside studio spaces. Susan Elkin went to investigate The world of theatre and education seems to be enjoying a spate of drama school moving, or diversifying, into south London. In our last issue we […]
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Celebrating its fifth year, the recent Music & Drama Education Expo at Olympia proved to be an exciting, eclectic mix of workshops, seminars and exhibitors. Susan Elkin brings us a flavour of events You can hear the cavernous Olympia Central space rattling with trumpet blasts, people trying out pianos before you even get up the […]
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Michael McIntyre’s ‘Man Drawer’ sketch from his 2008 Hammersmith Apollo routine sums up my life with objects. The out-of-currency foreign coinage, the electrical leads with no obvious function, the keys to the house I no longer own and the batteries with dubious levels of charge – yes, I have that drawer. In fact my world […]
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Ezra LeBank – Associate Professor of Theatre Arts , CSULB Building on a panel from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education National Conference, I have continued research on concepts to utilize social media and digital technology to support teaching in studio theatre courses. One repeated request has been for a resource of ideas about […]
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Long established in North London, the Mountview Academy is heading south of the river. Here Susan Elkin catches up with principal Stephen Jameson Founded in 1945 as an amateur repertory company, Mountview Academy took its name from its local North London old style telephone exchange. By 1958 it was offering part time training. The full […]
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Running Wild is embarking on a UK tour this year and Ink Pellet dropped in on final rehearsals and chatted to the show’s creative team For those of you lucky enough to have caught Running Wild at the Open Air Theatre last summer, you’ll be delighted to hear that the Children’s Touring Partnership are taking […]
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As the Head of Dance at READ College, I am passionate about ensuring that my young students have the very best start to their professional dance training and consequently their future careers. This means educating our young people about how to look after themselves both physically and psychologically. By Helen Read In recent years there […]
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Proving an unmitigated success, the annual Playing Shakespeare season at The Globe promises to enthral, engage and entertain thousands more teenagers this spring. Susan Elkin is a huge, well wrapped up fan Anyone who doubts that Shakespeare still speaks to young people should get along to The Globe to see The Taming of the Shrew […]