Tabla de contenidos para March 2023 en Ink Pellet

As an amateur violinist I recently took part in an all-day workshop run by an orchestra in Reigate. It was attended by nearly 100 players from many corners of nearby counties and beyond. The idea was to explore two large scale works which amateur orchestras usually lack the resources to tackle. “I haven’t played in an ensemble this size since youth orchestra days” said my violinist son, Lucas, who lives in Cambridge and clearly thought this event was worth travelling for. That remark set me thinking about youth orchestras – especially as it was echoed by two others who spoke to me during the day. Lucas played in the Kent County Youth Orchestra in the early 1990s. They did a tour to Argentina and another to Portugal, as well as…

ENOUGH: SCENES FROM CHILDHOOD Review by Susan Elkin By Stephen Hough Publisher by Faber & Faber Sir Stephen Hough CBE, 61, is an eminent classical pianist with an ongoing international concert programme and many recordings to his name. He is also a published poet and reading this memoir I became convinced that like the late actors, Antony Sher (also a writer and painter) and actor Dirk Bogarde (wonderful writer) Hough could – had he chosen to – have made his living in more than one field. In a series of very short chapters, he describes his parents who eventually separated, his early teachers many of whom became lifelong friends, his early awareness that he is gay, his unhappy time at Chetham’s School of Music, his conversion to Catholicism and much…

I’m sitting in one of the rooms at the National Theatre which the public doesn’t usually notice although there are windows onto the side road near the Dorfman entrance. Trios of teachers are earnestly, eagerly giving life to the simplest of tabletop puppets (made from tea towels and elastic bands) which are slowly, painstakingly negotiating a makeshift assault course. Toby Olié, probably the world’s best-known puppeteer, is cruising the room offering advice. “Give your puppet breath” he says “It’s all in the breathing. I need to hear it.” He puts a lot of emphasis on what might work with, for or by students. This is just one of the workshops which formed part of the National Theatre’s annual two-day Drama Teacher conference last month. “Yes, we do it each year”…

There is something faintly terrifying about Josette Bushell-Mingo as she strides powerfully across her office to greet me. Dressed entirely in black and sporting some of the longest, flashiest white acrylic nails I’ve ever seen, she certainly doesn’t look like anyone’s stereotyped image of a drama school principal. As we settle down to chat and she relaxes a little – thus allowing me to do so too – she tells me that she is often mistaken for a student, which doesn’t surprise me because her arresting appearance belies her age by several decades. Later, thawing even more, she laughs, flaunts her nails and says cheerfully: “Oh behind this radical look, I’m just a working-class black girl from Plaistow!” Josette was offered the job at Central following the short tenure of…

Painting. Painting! I love it. Abstract, figurative, I love it all. I want it, I need it, and I got it. Two shows on display in London currently couldn’t offer a better chance to understand how painting can work and succeed, both representational and not, than Alice Neel’s retrospective at the Barbican (Hot off the Griddle, until May 21st) and Action Gesture Paint at the Whitechapel (Women Artists and Global Abstraction, 1940-70, until May 7th). I’ll start with Neel’s showing. I was unaware that I was so aware of her portraits until I came across the picture of ‘Andy Warhol, 1970’ mid-way around the spaces. He’s seated toward the end of a couch (and sofas appear a lot in her paintings, as do chairs), with his hands in his lap,…

Empire of Light – 2023 film directed by Sam Mendes It’s a treat to see dear old Margate centre stage in a thoughtful film which revisits the Kent resort just as its glamour really begins to fade and the Mods and Rockers arrive in the early 1980s. I learned afterwards that the company took over Dreamland where most of Empire of the Light was filmed Hilary (Olivia Colman) is front of house manager at a big cinema – still just about functioning although parts of it are derelict. She has mental health issues – the back story gradually emerges – and Colman, always good at a troubled looks and eager smiles, gets the right blend of volatility, anger, tenderness and pitiful vulnerability. There is a sensitive parallel performance from Michael…