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I gave a talk to Warwick students last night, as part of the careers service’s ‘Working in publishing and online publishing’ event. I talked a bit about my personal experience of working at ArtsProfessional, and gave the best advice I had to give. While I don’t pretend to be an expert (I was slightly perturbed by 150 earnest students taking notes as I talked!), I have spent a lot of time thinking about publishing, the blurring boundaries between paper and digital, and the place that I and other young people can hold in a rapidly-changing world. I didn’t make predictions about where publishing is going, because people smarter than me have done so – and the short answer is that no-one really has a clue anyway. Anyway, I thought more people than were in a lecture theatre in Coventry last night might find some of what I had to say useful, so here it is. Bear in mind that they are just notes, and that I was much more eloquent and hilarious in the flesh.

MAKING IT IN PUBLISHNG AND ONLINE PUBLISHNG.

Build up a portfolio: You’re more likely to get a work placement once you have a portfolio to show people. Do you blog/review/write anywhere? A blog is your online portfolio, so think about design, check spelling/grammar and remember anyone could be reading it. Remember that NOTHING ON THE INTERNET EVER GOES AWAY. EVER. Would you be comfortable with a potential employer seeing your posts? You need to balance posting regularly (once a week, minimum) with not waffling – post when you have something to say. The more you write the easier it gets – try having opinions on news stories, commenting/reviewing whatever you’re readings, expanding on a side-note from your most recent essay…

Start job-hunting early: This is the best advice I can give you. You’ll be revising for your exams, then taking your finals and wanting a break, but by the start of the summer most things will have gone. If you wait until after your exams, it’s only going to get more competitive. It’s frustrating and can be depressing – many places don’t acknowledge applications – but applying early shows that you’re keen, that you can balance tasks and that you’re thinking ahead. Think about your CV – what can you put on it that’s relevant to the job in question and shows you off to your best advantage? This may sounds obvious, but I’ve seen some pretty terrible CVs since I started working at AP – spellcheck it, proof read it, get a friend you trust to proof read it. Make sure that you tweak your CV with each applicatio, so that it’s as relevant as possible. A good way to go about it is to take each point in the person specification and address it in your CV or cover letter: e.g. If the person spec asks for someone highly-organised, specifically say that you are extremely organised, and give one concise, concrete example of something the proves you are. Ditto motivated, a self-starter etc. Think about what each point actually means – they tend to be heavy on buzz words – and address it accordingly. For example, highly-organised might mean able to keep several balls in the air (particularly in an administrative role, which a lot of entry-level jobs are) or it might mean an ability to unfailingly hit deadlines (in an editorial assistant role, for example).

Learn from others: Formal training isn’t essential, but it can be useful and can show that you are serious. There’s always more to learn, and a course or two to sharpen your skills and technique is always a good thing. Look for personal recommendations before choosing because there are thousands.

Think about whether you want to go into publishing or online publishing, because they are very different: Traditional publishing is a shrinking field, and jobs are scarce and getting scarcer. Online publishing, on the other hand, is growing rapidly. However, there is still a prestige to working in trad publishing that is lacking in the online world, and a lot of online stuff lacks the quality control of paper-publishing: no space constraints can mean editing is sloppy and the writing is poor. Not always, obviously, there are lots of great websites, online magazines, online news services etc, but most reputable publishers try to do both – they will have a digital side to whatever else they do. Publishing needs skills such as a good eye for prose, editing/proofing skills, the ability to hit deadlines, etc, whereas online publishing often requires HTML coding, familiarity with social media etc as well.

N.B. Some of this draws on thoughts from being on a Guardian Careers panel on arts journalism. The full transcript is here and a summary can be found here. If anyone wishes to talk about any of this further, or has any questions, I can be reached on: contact@eleanorturney.co.uk or Tweet me @eleanorturney If you agree with anything I’ve said, or wish to develop the debate, please comment below.

I can’t recall as perfect a night in the theatre as the one we spent in the Courtyard last night. We were as transfixed as the little girl in front of us, although we perhaps got slightly more out of Tim Minchin’s witty lyrics and Dennis Kelly’s sharp script. With Minchin’s characteristic irreverence and sheer comic genius, the songs all zip along, packed with more syllables per line than should be strictly possible. Kelly’s script does Dahl’s original story justice while keeping the pace swift and the action highly satisfying.

Rob Howell’s simple but effective alphabet-themed design is charming in the best sense of the word, and gave the strong cast (guided by the expert hand of Director Matthew Warchus) ample room to play. The stage became classroom or playground seamlessly, and gave the energetic choreography (Peter Darling) room to dazzle. The stunts (SPOILER ALERT) were convincing and slick. Watching Bertie Carvel’s monstrous Miss Trunchbull swing a child (Lara Weaver) round by her plaits was horrifying, and made the child in front of us climb onto her Dad’s lap. Wise move.

The children in the cast were amazingly professional, and could teach the adult cast a thing or two about diction. Kerry Ingram, who played Matilda the night we saw it, was superlative – an impressively accomplished singer, actress and dancer at eleven years old. With the success of the whole show resting on her tiny shoulders, Ingram pulls off the role with aplomb. She is touching, plucky and highly entertaining, with excellent comic timing and a powerful set of lungs. The other child actors are great, too, and form a tight ensemble. Kuan Frye, who played Bruce, has a truly incredible voice, and an electric stage presence. Tiny Shivum Gupta was adorable as Eric, and all the children made Carvel’s huge, menacing Miss Trunchbull look even larger and scarier.

Carvel also provides a delightful contrast to Lauren Ward’s angelic Miss Honey, who is the kind of teacher that every child wishes they could have. Her scene with the ballroom-dancing Mrs Wormwood (Josie Walker) is priceless, and superbly choreographed. Walker, a vision in platinum curls and pink fishnets, is a monstrous mother. She nicely balanced being one of the villains of the piece (and Kelly does not shy away from the emotional abuse heaped on Matilda’s head by her parents) with providing comic relief – while staying the right side of pantomimic. Mr Wormwood (Paul Kaye) was great too, and he managed to have an even bigger personality than his stunningly awful lime green check suit.

If there are quibbles, then they are small ones: the addition of Matilda’s story-telling, while an effective dramatic device and a neat way to advance the story, doesn’t quite work plot-wise, and the denouement is glossed over for this reason. Matilda’s ‘super-powers’ aren’t really explored as fully as they could be, which lessens their impact. However, as I say, these are minor complaints in what was otherwise a wholly successful and enjoyable evening.

It was delightful to see so many excited children in the theatre, and it is a testament to the script, direction, cast and crew that the theatre was silent apart from frequent bursts of laughter. It takes a remarkable show to keep such a mixed age-range captivated, and this is it.

Kneehigh’s ‘Hansel and Gretel’ stretches the story as far as possible, and then lets it go ‘ping’ in the most satisfying way possible. The (slightly too long) first half sets up Hansel (Chris Price) and Gretel (Joanna Holden) as loving, teasing twins from a happy but poor family. No evil stepmother here, but a family driven to abandoning their beloved children after poverty and famine drive them to desperation. Edith Tanku plays the loving mother (although her accent wavers rather alarmingly from time to time) with humour and tenderness, and plays well off TJ Holmes’s jolly father. The emotional wrench when Hansel and Gretel decide to leave of their own accord is all the greater for it being voluntary: two mouths are easier to feed than four.

The fear of the forest is alleviated by Gretel’s resourcefulness and knack with technology: she rigs mousetraps, wood choppers and, eventually, an ingenious series of ropes, pulleys and switches that boot the camp-but-terrifying witch into the flames. The witch, played with huge glee by a mincing TJ Holmes, is larger-than-life and salivates over the children. Although the witch herself is not as scary as she could be, the set comes into its own here: the witch’s collection of tiny shows and teddies are unpleasantly reminiscent of the Holocaust and add a deeper dimension to the horror – which is only just undercut by the witch’s wry aside to the audience at the end of her song, “Thanks for applauding cannibalism”.

Stu Barker and Ian Ross’s charming score complements the whimsical script (Carl Grose), and the interaction between actors and musicians is nicely done under Mike Shepherd’s deft direction. Michael Vale’s set is a giant playground for Gretel’s inventions, full of gardening tools, ropes and pulleys – it invites her quick brain to play and experiment, a delightful thing in a children’s show.