this month's
Ink Pellet contains
Top Gs Like Me
Top Gs Like Me is a new play by Samson Hawkins which premieres at Royal and Derngate, Northampton in February 2026. Susan Elkin chats to Anna Simpson about the workshops and CPD sessions they are coordinating with the production. “We are very proud of Samson. He’s a local playwright who has been working dramaturgically with […]
Global Playwright
BIG INTERVIEW Global Playwright Oladipo “Dipo” Agboluaje, 57, is a British/Nigerian playwright best known for Early Morning (2003) and lya-lle (The First Wife) which won the Alfred Fargon Award in 2009. Susan Elkin talked to him. Dipo was born in Hackney, but his family returned to Nigeria when he was nine. “So I did all […]
ROYAL COURT YOUNG PLAYWRIGHTS AWARD
The 2026 Young Playwrights Award is now officially nation-wide! Do you have an idea or a story to tell? Can you imagine it performed live, by actors on a stage? It’s time to start your playwriting journey. The Young Playwrights Award is a free, open-access competition for any teenager in the UK interested in writing a play, […]
VOICED: THE FESTIVAL FOR ENDANGERED LANGUAGES
With half of the world’s languages threatened to fall silent by the end of the century comes the first ever UK festival Voiced: The Festival for Endangered Languages, celebrating the power of language and art by highlighting endangered global and local languages through a creative festival. Throughout October, the Barbican, London will be filled with an explosion of voices and […]
NATIONAL THEATRE EXPANDS SCHOOLS PROGRAMME
The National Theatre has announced its autumn programme for schools across the UK, deepening its work with young people to support its continued ambition to reach every child in the UK before they leave school. Over 90% of state secondary schools are already signed up to access the National Theatre Collection to stream world-leading theatre directly […]
The National Plan for Drama and Theatre Education
Following feedback from drama teachers, educators and other interested parties, The National Plan for Drama and Theatre Education document is now completed and you can find a direct link to the pdf here. This is a mammoth achievement and a feat of collaboration. It has been widely circulated including to the DfE Team, whose members are also […]
BROADWAY LICENSING GLOBAL OFFERS UK TEACHERS FREE PERUSALS FOR HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD SECONDARY SCHOOL EDITION
The Critically Acclaimed Show Has Now Been Adapted for UK Secondary Schools (London)—Broadway Licensing Global London, Sonia Friedman Productions, Colin Callender and Harry Potter Theatrical Productions are thrilled to announce that secondary school teachers can now sign up for a free perusal script of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Secondary School Edition. BLG London […]
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 […]
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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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.
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The first survey in the UK of American artist/photographer Christopher Williams’ work is currently showing at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London. GRAHAM HOOPER investigates an exhibition where nothing can be taken for granted.
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When Grayson Perry rolls into town, people sit up and take notice. Dawn Hopley meets the man and takes in his new retrospective, Provincial Punk at Turner Contemporary. Heaven forbid an artist becomes popular with the masses – when that happens you can guarantee it will be the night of the long knives from elitist […]
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Award-winning playwright Nick Payne, has amazed audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. Here he shares the sociable side of his nature with a dinner party full of ‘big’ characters.
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Perry good show We all love a bit of Grayson Perry – and a landmark exhibition at Turner Contemporary called Provincial Punk gives us an insight into this most colourful of artists. The exhibition explores Perry’s uniquely subversive practice, from a young artist forging his own artistic language in 1980s Britain to his status today […]
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Hugh Maynard plays John in Miss Saigon at the Prince Edward Theatre. He has a long musical theatre track record, a new album out and a powerful personal back story. SUSAN ELKIN finds out more. Some actors present themselves as exuberant show offs presumably because they dare not stop performing. Hugh Maynard isn’t one of […]