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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Now in its ninth year, Little Voices has been helping children find their singing voices, with the added benefit of developing their confidence in other areas. Susan Elkin investigated this award-winning enterprise. Everyone can play a musical instrument. And each of us has our instrument with us continually. Anyone – and of course that includes […]
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In the latest of our regional theatre spotlights, we feature the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds – a thriving cultural centre, developing strong links with schools and the wider community Looks aren’t everything. From the outside West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds is not the most beautiful building in the world resembling, as someone noted when […]
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SUSAN ELKIN visited TheatreCraft at the Royal Opera House to join hundreds of young people investigating ‘other’ career opportunities in the theatre It’s dead easy – if you’re eight or eleven or fourteen, say – to catch the theatre bug. You see adults, and occasionally children apparently having a ball on stage and suddenly you […]
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Graham Hooper took time out to visit the Tate Modern and was drawn to an installation by Harun Farocki reflecting a century of industrial life What is generally assumed to be the earliest example of film ever made was 120 years old last year, in 2015. Taken in France, lasting a mere 46 seconds, it […]
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Gill Lewis, 48 who trained and worked as a vet, is the author of novels about animals often being treated badly by humans usually for political or economic reasons. Her books for young adults include Moon Bear, White Dolphin and Sky Hawk all published by OUP. Her latest is Gorilla Dawn about rebels, industrialisation and […]
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Given how many films and TV adaptations there have been over the years it takes real imaginative flair to do something original with this text. Sally Cookson and her team have certainly come up with a different concept. The Littleton proscenium is presented as a huge white curtained hollow box within which designer Michael Vale […]
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Recently the opportunity arose within my GCSE Drama group for a few of us to go to the Gulbenkian Theatre, a small theatre on campus at the University of Kent in Canterbury, to watch a production of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, one of his most well-known and macabre tragedies. I decided I would go, as I […]
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Artistic Director Paul Roseby has expanded the National Youth Theatre beyond all recognition with a great team of directors, writers and staff working closely to enable his creative vision and here takes us through a typically busy day It’s the wrong side of 7am. John Humphries wakes me up. I switch him off. Sorry John, […]
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A new marketplace connecting those who write plays with those who need them, means we are never going to search for plays in the same way again. Ink Pellet reports on how TreePress is already changing the way amateur plays are distributed and licensed.
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An audition is like an exam – you only get one crack at it! Casting Director, Richard Evans CDG, reveals the highs and lows of his job and shares his top 10 tips for audition success.