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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Author Jenny McLachlan is about to leave her job as a teacher to become a full-time writer. Here she gives us a glimpse into a typical day as she prepares to make that change...
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LESLEY FINLAY enjoyed this macabre retelling of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus...
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There's plenty of time to enter the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award...
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Simon Barraclough is one of the judges of the Foyle Young Poet of the Year award. He talked to LESLEY FINLAY about his development from record shop worker to poet...
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Student ALEX RYE shares her experience from choosing a school to winning a place at performing arts school...
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Deadlines for drama school are whooshing by. But the good news is that students wishing to apply for next year’s courses have plenty of time to start preparing. MATTHEW TURNBULL from Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts gives us some great advice...
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Funding for the arts is a real hot potato – organisations, in the face of draconian cuts to budgets, have been told to draw on the generosity of big business. The partnership between Deutsche Bank and Shakespeare’s Globe started long before serious austerity was an issue. Now in its eighth year, Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank continues to make a real, effective and sustainable difference to students and teachers, as LESLEY FINLAY found out...
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It’s all happening, of course, at the Imperial War Museum – with the centenary of the First World War. The Manchester site has a display of photographs that shed light on female social history as INK PELLET discovered…
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The first We Day. Anyone heard of it? Okay, let’s try this then: Remember the photograph of dashing Prince Harry kissing his on-off ‘squeeze’ Cressida Bonas at Wembley Arena last month? [Apologies for coming over all ‘tabloid’!] That was We Day. Still none the wiser? Sadly the message was generally lost in this kiss. The […]