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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Susan Elkin puts the case for arts teachers to encourage students to embrace healthy eating and lifestyle. Hardly a day goes by without a hand-wringing news item about worsening obesity and the trouble it is likely to cause if it isn’t already doing so: not least unaffordable NHS costs. In the last month alone, we’ve […]
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Graham Hooper took time out during half-term, watching The Clock at the Tate Modern. I’m queuing to watch a film. Nothing unusual there, except this film is 24 hours long. Yes, that’s right, a whole day and night of big screen action. I say action, it’s mainly people looking at their watch, or a clock. […]
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Writer and director Debbie Isitt tells us about bringing the much-loved festive movie to the stage. For anyone who hasn’t seen the hit Christmas film, what is Nativity! The Musical about? It’s a classic story about a group of underdog kids in a challenging primary school trying to put on the best nativity play they […]
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Stephanie Rutherford, actor musician currently touring in The Sign of Four with Blackeyed Theatre, chats to Susan Elkin
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DNA – a collaboration between Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch and Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Susan Elkin discovers more. It is very unusual for a regional theatre to collaborate with a drama school as Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch is doing with Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. The joint project is a production of […]
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“The Into Film Festival presented wonderful opportunities for our students, most of whom rarely visit the cinema. It was more than just a cinema visit, it was an entire package. I would recommend the Festival to all teachers.” Leila Hinks, St Andrews Primary School Free cinema trips and resources to engage young minds through the […]
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Susan Elkin chats to James Grimsey, vocal coach and Creative Director at Arts1 School of Performance, about training a voice and dispelling a few myths. The human voice is a very subtle and complex thing. And James Grimsey is utterly fascinated by it. “The more you learn about the voice and how it works the […]
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Mark Glover speaks to Rebecca Winwood, Special Projects Producer at Huddersfield’s Lawrence Batley Theatre and discovers a venue that cares deeply for its community, working closely with other initiatives to bring art to its surrounding areas. I’ve been living in the North of England for six months now having swapped the sweeping fields of the […]
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Susan Elkin went to the UK offices of Theatre Rights Worldwide five floors above Regent Street to talk to TRW vice president, Drew Baker, about licensing and performing musicals. If you have written a musical – perhaps for your own students – then maybe you’d like it to have an afterlife in other schools. If […]
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Two separate exhibitions this autumn have similar themes. Graham Hooper visited both and gives us his insight into the friendship and relationships, as presented through art. One academic year ends, another begins. Older colleagues retire and new staff fill their roles. Students leave school for college and leave college for work or another course. This […]