Drawing: The Night Alive starring Ciaran Hinds, Brian Gleeson, Caoilfhionn Dunne, Michael McElhatton and Jim Norton

Posted on January 8, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

THE NIGHT ALIVE is Dublin playwright Conor McPherson’s latest play. After a short run at the Donmar Warehouse in London, (June/July 2013) it transferred to the Linda Gross Theatre in New York, where it is currently playing with the season extended till February.

It revolves around a motley collection of losers, living hand-to-mouth in a trapped existence. Despite its particular Irish setting and vernacular, the play has a universality, common in most of Conor’s work, concerning the loss and redemption among inarticulate people who don’t have the emotional grammar to express themselves.

An excellent cast of 5: Ciaran Hinds, Brian Gleeson, Caoilfhionn Dunne, Michael McElhatton and Jim Norton all came out at the same time of the Donmar on a balmy (and blarney) July evening. Inevitably, I was going to miss one or two as they all quickly headed to the local to quench their thirsts on such a warm night. Hopefully some of the others gathered to garner a graph would delay them long enough for me to sift around all five. I missed one – Brian, mainly because I didn’t recognise him. But I did get him the following evening.

Michael signed for me the previous night, but he didn’t dedicate,so after I recognised and got Brian I asked Michael to sign ‘To Mark’ – he started to sign his name again,then realised it was already there,hence the ‘Michael M’ added to his script on the lower right – five and a half sigs over two nights – not bad!

Drawing: Dudley Moore, The Sex Thimble

Posted on January 7, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Dudley Moore was one of Britain’s best loved comedians, actors and musicians.

He became a household name in the 1960s for his partnership with the late Peter Cook, creating the classic comic characters Dud and Pete, becoming comic icons on both sides of the Atlantic. He was also an accomplished jazz pianist winning a scholarship to Oxford’s Magdalen College. He was nicknamed ‘The Sex Thimble” because of his 5’2″ stature.

Dud went on to a successful Hollywood career, starring in a number of hit screen comedies, including the Blake Edward’s film 10 (1979) with Bo Derek and Arthur (1981) with Liza Minnelli and Sir John Gielgud. In the latter he played Arthur Bach, a drunken New York millionaire collecting an Oscar nomination and winning the Golden Globe Award.

In the 1990’s he suffered from a rare, incurable brain condition, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. Music became his main comfort… “But it’s difficult to know that all the keys are there to be played and I can’t play them. People started saying I was drunk on stage… it was dreadful,” he said. He played 2 concerts at the Aotea Centre in Auckland, New Zealand in November 1996 before he went public with his condition. He kindly signed my sketch at the venue. He sadly passed away in March 2002, aged 66.

Drawing: Rosalie Craig in The Light Princess at The National Theatre

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The Light Princess is a dark Scottish fairy tale by George MacDonald, published in 1864. It revolves around a princess who loses her mother and her gravity, so floats in the air. She also lacks moral gravity, incapable of real feeling and laughs at everything – her way of blocking out pain and responsibility.

It was the inspiration for the National Theatre musical production and six years in the making. It was adapted by Samuel Adamson with music and lyrics by Tori Amos, directed by Olivier and Tony Award winner Marianne Elliot.

Rosalie Craig is the Light Princess, Althea. The Evening Standard said “Rosalie Craig is stunningly good.” She won the newspapers Theatre Award for Best Musical Performance and is nominated for a What’s On Stage Award.

Drawing: Rhys Ifans in Protest Song at The National Theatre

Posted on January 5, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Protest Song is a 70 minute monologue in The Shed – The National Theatre’s new intimate venue on the South Bank.

A rough sleeper, Danny finds himself caught up in the Occupy movement’s protest camp that descended on St Paul’s environs through the winter of 2011. It’s visceral political theatre, lampooning inequality at every level and the gulf between the people who have temporarily taken to the streets, and the man who lives there because he has nowhere else to go.

Initially furious at the invasion, Danny gradually gets involved with his ‘surrogate’ family, giving shape to his day.

Rhys Ifans plays the wounded and resilient Danny, delivering Tim Price’s funny and savage narrative in what critics have called, “a blazing performance”, “superb” and “utterly convincing”. After many years of being asked to move along, it’s ironic now to be told to remain motionless in one place. He takes refuge in banter and anecdotes, full of pathos and humour, but imminently combustible.

It’s not your usual festive theatre, with no fairytale ending, summed up by the metaphor of a piano with damaged keys, that when something is broken you have to find a way to work around it. It’s the only way the music will be heard.

Drawing: Jo Brand as the Genie in Aladdin at the New Wimbledon Theatre

Posted on January 4, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Josephine Grace ‘Jo’ Brand is one of the UK’s best comics. The Observer listed her as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. She made her panto debut last month in the New Wimbledon’s production of Aladdin as the Genie of the Ring.

Jo won a BAFTA award for her role as Kim Wilde in the BBC sitcom Getting On, set in a hospital’s geriatric ward, inspired by her earlier career as a psychiatric nurse. Jo also wrote with other core cast members Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdire winning the Writer’s Guild Award for Best Comedy in 2010.

She describes her genie appearance as “Julian Clary on steroids.”

Drawing: Ciarán Hinds in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway

Posted on January 3, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Irishman Ciaran Hinds has developed an impressive film, television and stage career as a versatile character actor. In January 2013 he played the role of ‘Big Daddy’ in Tennessee William’s 1955 family drama CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF alongside Scarlett Johansson at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway. He signed my sketch while featuring in Conor McPherson’s THE NIGHT ALIVE at London’s Donmar Warehouse in July 2013.

Drawing: Helen McCrory and Robert Glenister in The Late Middle Classes

Posted on January 2, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The Donmar produced David Leveaux’s sensitive revival of Simon Gray’s The Late Middle Classes in 2010.

This funny, melancholic and captivating play about a young boy and promising pianist who is trapped between conflicting emotional needs of the adults in his life, revealing the frustration, secrets and guilt of middle class respectability in 1950s England.

Helen McCrory played Celia, his emotionally demanding mother, frustrated at finding a role for herself “blending waspishness with vulnerability”. Robert Glenister is his piano teacher, living alone with his Austrian refugee mother. The boy is a mixture of muse, playmate and object of his desire.

Both Helen and Robert signed my sketch on 13 July 2010 at the Warehouse stage door.

Drawing: Stephen Mangan and Matthew Macfadyen in Jeeves and Wooster – Perfect Nonsense

Posted on January 1, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Jeeves and Wooster – Perfect Nonsense is the first ever stage play adapted from the works of PG Wodehouse. Directed by Sean Foley and written by brothers David and Robert Goodale, based on “Plum’s” 1938 novel The Code of the Woosters.

The show had pre West End dates at the Richmond Theatre and Theatre Royal, Brighton before beginning previews at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London in October 2013, officially opening on the 12 November. Originally scheduled to run until March 2014, it has now been extended until September due to popular demand.

Stephen Mangan is the effervescent, aristocratic Bertie Wooster and Matthew Macfadyen is his dutiful and imperturbable Jeeves… when he’s not impersonating a number of other characters such as old buffer Sir Watkyn Bassett, the myopic Gussie Fink-Nottle and the feminine Stiffy Bying. They are joined by Mark Hadfield as Seppings… when he’s not playing the imposing Aunt Dahlia or the incipient dictator Roderick Spode.

The trio signed my sketch this week at the theatre.