Drawing: Emilia Fox and Emma Fielding in Rapture, Blister, Burn

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Gina Gionfriddo’s Rapture, Blister, Burn is currently in season at the Hampstead Theatre, directed by Peter DuBois. After University, Catherine and Gwen chose opposite paths. Catherine becomes a high flying academic and author, while Gwen builds a home with a husband and children. Decades later, each woman covets the other’s life. It’s a dissection of modern gender politics in a virtuosic comedy. It received four stars from The Times, Evening Standard, Telegraph, Independent and Time Out. Emilia Fox and Emma Fielding play Catherine and Gwen respectively. Both signed the drawing at the theatre last. The play continues until 22 February 2014.

Drawing: Jude Law and Jessie Buckley in Henry V at The Noël Coward Theatre

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The inaugural season of work for the Michael Grandage Company at the Noel Coward Theatre comprising of five productions ended with the final performance of Henry V, starring Jude Law as the national hero, come war criminal monarch.

After a pioneering 15 month season, the star-studded team played to 390,000 people, with a quarter of the tickets sold for £10. At the heart of the Company’s philosophy was to offer affordable seats to attract a new generation of fans. A third were bought by first time theatre goers.

Jude was the last big draw, in a season that included Simon Russell Beale, Dame Judi Dench, Ben Whishaw, Sheridan Smith and David Walliams. On the final night he and Jessie Buckley (Princess Katharine) signed my sketch.

Drawing: Bertie Carvel as “The Trunch” in Matilda – The Musical

Posted on February 15, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Roald Dahl’s Matilda – The Musical won a record seven Olivier Awards in 2012, including Best Actor in a Musical for Bertie Carvel, playing the hammer-throwing schoolmarm Miss Trunchbull.

After a 12 week stint at Stratford-Upon-Avon, Matilda transferred to the Cambridge Theatre in the West End in November 2011.

He reprised the role on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre, earning a Tony nomination. Bertie performed 650 show-stealing turns as the despot with a colossal bosom and hunchback who lived by the motto: Bambinatum est maggitum (children are maggots)

Drawing: Imelda Staunton in A Delicate Balance at The Almeida Theatre

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

A Delicate Balance won Edward Albee his first Pulitzer Prize in 1967, followed by the more commercially successful Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

The Almeida Theatre’s revival in the summer of 2011 featured Imelda Staunton as the drunken Sister Claire – “Vodka? Sunday? Ten-to-eight? Well, why the hell not.”

This ‘country comedy’ explores the “secret terror that lurks beneath the bland routines of bourgeois life.” Imelda’s performance, as usual, attracted rave reviews. She signed my sketch at the final matinee on the 2nd of July.

My sketch of Imelda in Sweeney Todd is here.

Drawing: Danielle Hope in The Wizard of Oz at London Palladium

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Danielle Hope won the BBC talent quest Over the Rainbow and with it the part of Dorothy in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s production of The Wizard of Oz, which began at the London Palladium in February 2011.

She was still at school and beat 9000 other hopefuls to star alongside theatre legend Michael Crawford in the title role. She continued as Dorothy until 5 February 2012, before joining the cast of Les Misérables as Eponine till June 2013

Drawing: George Clooney

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

I first met George Clooney on the Warner Bros lot sometime in the mid 1990s, I was heading to the set of ER… and so was he, on a bicycle. He reminded me of Paul Newman in the famous scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, although George took a more direct route without Katherine Ross on his handlebars and being chased by an angry bull.

Since then I have met George over numerous occasions at various events on the natural cycle of life and he has always been the same – charming, funny, friendly and accommodating. I recall interviewing him at ShoWest in Las Vegas while he was promoting Three Kings. I was the last in a lengthy line up. He was due on stage and the organisers were urging him to move… but he stayed and chatted. “I’d love to work in New Zealand,” he said. “I’ll play the drunk in the corner.”

Our paths briefly crossed again at the UK premiere of his latest film The Monument Men at the Odeon in Leicester Square last night, in which he does everything – act, direct, produce, write.

He was in good form – not just charming, friendly and accommodating, but quick too as he rapidly ‘did the entire line’. He saw my sketch and said, “oh, nice!” and signed his distinctive ‘GCy’ moniker.

Drawing: What the Butler Saw, with Omid Djalili, Tim McInnerny, Samantha Bond, Georgina Moffett, Jason Thorpe and Mick Hendry

Posted on February 11, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Joe Orton’s farce What the Butler Saw premiered at the Queen’s Theatre in London on 5 March 1969 – his last play before he was bludgeoned to death by his partner Kenneth Halliwell in August 1967 at the age of 34. In a short, but prolific, career he became known for scandalous black comedies often referred to as “Ortonesque” characterised by dark yet farcical cynicism.

In 2012 a revival was staged at the Vaudeville Theatre, featuring Omid Djalili, Tim McInnerny, Samantha Bond, Georgina Moffett, Jason Thorpe and Mick Hendry who all signed my sketch in July.

Drawing: Abbie Cornish

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Thirty one year old Australian actress Abbie Cornish was in London this week for the World Premiere of the RoboCop remake.

In 2009 she starred opposite Ben Whishaw in Jane Campion’s Bright Star. Abbie played Frances (Fanny) Brawne who was betrothed to the English poet John Keats from 1818 until his death in 1821, a time in which he spawned some of his most productive work.

I sent Abbie this sketch in July 2009 and she signed and returned it a year later.

Drawing: Samantha Bond

Posted on February 9, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Aptly named, Samantha Bond featured in four 007 films as Miss Moneypenny during the Pierce Brosnan era between 1995 and 2002. The popular British actress has been a regular on the West End boards over the past five years. In an interview for WhatsOnStage, Samantha said, “I try and do a play a year. It’s my favourite place, nothing compares to live theatre… where I feel most at home, but it does scare the shit out of me.”

Following the revival of Tom Stoppard’s classic comedy of ideas Arcadia at the Duke of York’s in 2009, she did two shifts at the Vaudeville Theatre, with Oscar Wilde’s The Ideal Husband (with her husband Alexander Hanson) and What the Butler Saw before returning to the Duke of York’s for Passion Play in May 2013.

Her next appearance will be the comedy musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at the Savoy next month. So, plenty of opportunities to get Samantha to sign a sketch…. In this case she ‘graphed it at the Vaudeville during What The Butler Saw in July 2012.

Drawing: Ken Stott in A View From The Bridge at Duke of York’s Theatre

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Ken Stott, the Scot, better known to cinema goers as the dwarf Balin in the current Hobbit trilogy, is an accomplished theatre thespian. His most recent West End appearance was the lead in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. Theatre critic Tim Walker, writing in The Telegraph said, “Good for Lindsay Posner, the director of this pitch perfect production for not choosing a big star name to play the title role but a proper, solid stage actor in Ken Stott”.

I sketched Ken as the tragic protagonist Eddie when he starred in the revival of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge at the Duke of York’s in early 2009. He played an Italian-American longshoreman on the New York docks. The production drew media attention when Ken halted a performance to demand a group of rowdy school children be removed from the audience, who supported him by shouting, “out, out, out.” After a 15 minute stand-off the offending juveniles were removed…