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 […]
News
Meet John Hopley, the editor of Ink Pellet. He is a bit of a traditionalist (Jane Austen, the Brontes, Shakespeare, Dickens…) who is developing a love of modern teen fiction.
These are just some of our occasional musings on life in the arts world in Stage Whispers, the every day tale of everyday magazine folk…
-
It is always interesting to see how writers modify their work and I offer you a brace of Bertolt Brecht to compare, contrast and discuss. Methuen Drama offers two versions of the German’s masterpiece Der gute Mensch von Sezuan, to which the dramatist made significant changes. The original, translated by John Willett, and titled The […]
-
-
The National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain (NCO) is currently touring the UK auditioning aspiring children who want to make the most of its wonderful training and performance opportunities. Once selected, they attend intensive residential courses where they receive first-class training from tutors drawn from major national orchestras and the best specialist music schools around […]
-
This is the year of Sir Terrence Rattigan and to celebrate, the Barnfield Theatre in Exeter hosts the Camp Theatre Company with their production of The Browning Version. For those not in the know, the play tells the story of Arthur Crocker-Harris, a failed public school teacher. As ill health forces him into early retirement, […]
-
Young actors are hard at work on the Talawa Young Persons Theatre project in London. Here's how to follow the fun - and hard work!
-
DesignQuest gave students the chance to learn about design, fashion and the arts, thanks to an innovative project, created by the Prince's Foundation for Children & The Arts. LESLEY FINLAY reports...
-
There are few days left to take your seats on board the good ship Pericles at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre ...
-
Cy Twombly, the American artist, died in his beloved Rome this week. We add our thoughts...
-
An exciting new festival is about to hit Bristol that will be a great experience for you and your students...
-