this month's
Ink Pellet contains
HARMONY IN DIVERSITY
International soprano and Artistic Director of Pegasus Opera Company, Alison Buchanan, speaks to Nilgün Yusuf. Fans of Bridgerton may have seen Alison Buchanan sing in the spinoff series, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (2023) easily located on YouTube if you missed it. “That was a high point” the singer reflects. “I loved the show and the whole process. They treated me like artist.” Bejewelled […]
TAYLA KENYON
Tayla Kenyon is a producer, playwright, actor, teacher and workshop facilitator whose award-winning debut play FLUFF is a play text at the National Theatre. Her new play, Tell Me Where it Hurts, explores Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder andis currently on tour. “There weren’t masses of theatres in Hemel Hempstead where I was brought up, although we […]
Let’s fill this country with artists
Mountview is multiplying and now has seven CertHEs across the country. By Nilgün Yusuf. It’s been a long-held view that to make a career in the performing arts, you must move to London. But with sky high rents and the prohibitive cost of capital living, this is not an option for many young people. Mountview, […]
Poetry for Life
Having curated the Poetry Arena at Latitude for ten years from 2006, poet Luke Wright revisited the festival this summer to present excerpts from his latest book, Later Life Letter, and IP caught up with him later for a chat. Inspired by the likes of Blur’s Country House and the tapes of Monty Python, Luke […]
Into Film Supporting Literacy
This year’s Into Film Festival will take place between 6-27 November 2026, and will once again help educators bring learning to life for 5-19-year-olds across the UK by inspiring young people to watch, understand and make films in new and creative ways. Welcoming almost half a million pupils and their educators each year, education charity, […]
Beyond Laughter
Actor, comedian, broadcaster Rufus Hound, 47, has starred in the West End and presented primetime TV. Susan Elkin spoke to him. When I catch up with Rufus Hound he is eating a bowl of noodles between the matinee and the evening show where he is appearing as William in Jack and Sarah at the Mill […]
Matilda the Musical – Writing challenge
“Change My Story” is the Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC) flagship education programme accompanying the UK and Ireland tour of Matilda the Musical. Inspired by the musical’s themes of empowerment and literacy, the initiative aims to reach thousands of young people in cities hosting the touring production Roald Dahl’s delightful, subversive novel Matilda champions reading and […]
OHMI Trust
The OHMI Trust’s objective is to enable children and adults with physical impairments to play the instruments they want to play, when they want to play them and where they want to play them (whether at school, in the home or in a professional ensemble). OHMI Trust Music-Makers is a Birmingham-based charity, founded in 2011. Its primary […]
Learn with Mischief
Learn With Mischief is a new, free to use education resource designed for secondary students, and aims to inspire the next generation of theatre-makers and comedians, from the team behind The Play That Goes Wrong. Classrooms usually work better if there’s laughter. We teachers are inclined to get so earnestly involved in “delivering” the curriculum […]
Italia Conti
Italia Conti was an actor and teacher. In 1911 she founded the training school which bears her name. It has trained Naomi Campbell, Pixie Lott. Russell Brand, Noel Coward, Peter Duncan, Jack Hawkins, Lesley Manville and Layton Williams among thousands of others across twelve decades. One of the fifteen members of the Federation of Drama […]
Sidebar
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An interview with writer and actor Ben Crystal should be heard, which is a notion that replicates his view on how schools should approach the teaching of Shakespeare. He speaks with wonderful cadence, almost as if the practice of speaking in iambic pentameter to which he has become accustomed in his work has infiltrated his […]
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Lexicographers have been hard at work analysing the words used by young writers in the BBC Radio 2 short story competition 500 words. LESLEY FINLAY looks at their findings...
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Jonathan Lloyd is onto pastures new after seven years at the Polka Theatre...
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Roxana Silbert is the artistic director of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre which is re-opening in September. LESLEY FINLAY spoke to the dynamic woman who came to a career in theatre relatively late...
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The Northern Art Prize supports artists living in the ...errrr... north of England. Here we introduce the prize and the artists....
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Drama teacher ZOE NEAGLE explains how working with a professional theatre company like Trestle can add enormous value to the learning and confidence of students...
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Johnny Green and Garry Barker's classic book on The Clash gets the audiobook treatment...
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Pamela McFarland enjoys another historical helping from Mary Hooper...