Drawing: Michelle Terry in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Before the Party and Privacy

Posted on May 19, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

British actress and writer Michelle Terry won the Best Actress in a Supporting Role Olivier Award in 2011 for her role as Sylvia in Tribes at the Royal Court Theatre.

She co-wrote the seaside sitcom The Cafe with former Royle Family star Ralf Little. Michelle also plays Sarah, one of the three members of a family running the eponymous diner, set in her home town of Weston-Super-Mare.

Michelle is currently starring in James Graham’s new play Privacy at the Donmar Warehouse until its season conclusion on 31 May. I did this montage drawing of her in that production as well as Love’s Labour’s Lost (Shakespeare’s Globe 2007) and Before the Party (Almeida Theatre 2013).

Drawing: Kristin Atherton in Mary Shelley Tricycle Theatre

Posted on May 17, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Playwright Helen Edmunden’s new play Mary Shelley premiered in the early Autumn of 2012 at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds.

Brought up in a free thinking household of ideas, Mary Shelley was the daughter of feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft and the radical philosopher William Godwin. Aged 16 she eloped with the married poet Percy Shelley and her father cut her off. Two years later she wrote Frankenstein, a novel dedicated to her father about a man who creates a monster that only yearns for love and respect.

British actress Kristin Atherton played the title role. The Public Review wrote: “Kristin Atherton whole heartedly takes on the title role, passionately showing a determined Mary Shelley… the on stage chemistry between Atherton and Ben Lamb (Percy Shelley) is emotive and truthful. It was part of an eight venue national tour that concluded at the Triangle Theatre in London in June/July 2012 where Kristin signed this sketch.

Drawing: Gavin Creel and Will Swenson in Hair

Posted on May 16, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

In April 2010 the Broadway revival of Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical transferred to the Gielgud in London’s West End, with the same cast… I mean, tribe, including leads Gavin Creel as Claude and Will Swenson as Berger.

The Daily Telegraph’s Charles Spencer said it was “A timely and irresistibly vital revival of the greatest of all rock musicals.” But Hair is more than just a musical, it is a social and cultural phenomenon.

It went on to win the 2009 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical, with classic tracks like Aquarius, I Got Life, Good Morning Starshine, Let the Sunshine In and the title song Hair itself.

Will, who was nominated for a Tony for his Hair performance, is currently playing Inspector Javert in Les Miserables at the Imperial Theatre in New York and Gavin is starring on the London stage as Elder Price in the Tony and Olivier winning The Book of Mormon for which he won the Best Actor Olivier at this year’s (2014) awards.

I spent a bit of time at the stage door on a balmy May evening in 2010 mingling with the tribe and getting them all to sign the sketch.

Drawing: Niamh Cusack, Robert Sheehan and Ruth Negga in The Playboy of the Western World

Posted on May 15, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The Old Vic staged a revival of JM Synge’s Irish classic The Playboy of the Western World in the winter of 2011 with Robert Sheehan making his professional stage debut as the “swaggering motormouth” charmer Christy Mahon.

Ruth Negga is the self-possessed Pegeen – a combative barmaid who takes Christy’s fancy and the excellent Niamh Cusack’s calculating and sexually combative widow Quin lures the boy’s affections in a different direction.

When the play was first staged in 1907 at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre it provoked riots and was denounced as “an unmitigated protracted libel upon Irish peasant men and , worse still, on Irish peasant girlhood.”

As usual I left it to the last few days. On the Saturday I arrived at the stage door of the Old Vic, Ruth and Niamh had already gone in and the small hand was on 2 with the big hand rapidly approaching 12. The ‘graph harvest didn’t look promising. Then Robert rushed by and apologised… “Running late” and went in. I found out later he had locked himself out of his flat and had to borrow his landlord’s master key to make a hurried copy at Waterloo Shoe Repairs. They cut them while you wait, and he was cutting it fine to get to The Cut on time (sic). After all that, I eventually got Niamh at the Apollo two years later when she was in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and Robert signed at his London agent’s office a month later. Ruth is still on my ‘to get’ list.

Drawing: Kate O’Flynn and Lesley Sharp in A Taste of Honey at The National Theatre

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

A Taste of Honey just completed its season on the Lyttelton stage at the National Theatre. It was the first play by the late British dramatist Shelagh Delaney, written when she was eighteen.

Acclaimed as her ‘Kitchen singk’ masterpiece, it became one of the great defining and taboo breaking plays of the 1950s. Set in a grimy Salford housing estate, it focuses on a teenager who is abandoned by her fly by night mother, impregnated by a black sailor and looked after by a gay art student.

“Lesley Sharp and Kate O’Flynn brilliantly bring out the abrasive music hall double act quality in the funny, painful slanging matches between Helen the tarty, irresponsible mother, who lives hand to mouth off fancy men, and Jo, the oddball daughter who is both older and younger than her years because of this maternal neglect,” wrote critic Paul Taylor.

Drawing: Michaela Tabb “On Cue”

Posted on May 13, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Michaela Tabb is snooker’s leading female referee, known as the ‘Queen of the Baize’. A former nine ball player and captain of the Scottish Ladies’ Pool team, she became the first woman to take charge at a professional ranking snooker tournament in 2002.

She made her World Snooker Championship debut at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield in April 2003 and refereed the Final when John Higgins defeated Shaun Murphy in 2009. The previous year she refereed her first Masters final at Wembly Arena in London.

Michaela signed this sketch at the Crucible during this year’s World Championships.

Drawing: Michelle Williams in Cabaret

Posted on May 12, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Michelle Williams made her Broadway debut as Sally Bowles opposite Alan Cumming’s depraved emcee in the revival of Kander & Ebbb’s Berlin set musical Cabaret, directed by Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall, at Studio 54.

Nominated for three Academy Awards, for Brokeback Mountain (2005), Blue Valentine (2010) and My Week With Marilyn (2011), she won the Golden Globe for her role as Marilyn Monroe in the latter.

Hermione Holey in her review in The Telegraph commented on Michelle’s performance: “She becomes more and more compelling as the show goes on, singing and dancing with a furious, madcap quality and by the time she delivers the title number she’s at the height of her power”

NBC simply said “Michelle Williams is brilliant in a stunning and heartbreaking portrayal.”

I sent this quick 4B pencil portrait to Michelle at the theatre and she graciously signed it with a nice comment.

Drawing: Emily Taaffe, Holliday Grainger, Olivia Hallinan and Russell Bolam in Three Sisters

Posted on May 10, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Chekhov’s dark Three Sisters is seen in a new light by award winning playwright Anya Reiss at the Southwark Playhouse directed by Russell Bolam. After collaborating on the acclaimed Seagull with Russell in 2012, Anya adapts the Russian author’s greatest play relocating it to the middle East British diplomats and military in Yemen. Anya said “I was trying to find a from of modern exile.”

Emily Taaffe (Masha), Olivia Hallinan (Olga) and Holliday Grainger (Irina) play the three sisters which critic Luara Kate Jones said “… a believable bond between the three female leads as siblings, captivates the audiences attention.”

Three Sisters has just completed it’s short four week season at the Southwark Playhouse.

Drawing: Lech Walesa

Posted on May 9, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The Gdansk Shipyard electrician who made his name leading strikes under the ‘Solidarity’ banner became the catalyst for the fall of Soviet Communism and Poland’s first democratic elections 25 years ago.

He went on to become President, transforming the country into a capitalist economy and winning the Nobel Peace Prize. He was TIME Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1982.

In 1980 Gillette offered the charismatic leader a million dollars to shave off his trademark moustache in a commercial, but he refused. It did come off a few years later for personal reasons.

The remarkable 87 year old Polish filmmaker, Andrzej Wajda made a biopic entitled Walesa: Man of Hope which featured at last year’s BFI London Film Festival. Lech attended the first screening at the Odeon West End in Leicester Square and I was very keen to add one of the 20th Century’s iconic figures to my collection. It was, as they say, a perfect chance for an in-person autograph. When I arrived, he had already completed the red carpet press obligations and I caught a glimpse of his famous face complete with moustache going past the candy bar mixed sweet selection and to the auditorium. Bugger!

It didn’t help that a handful of bystanders said “oh yeah, some Polish politician sat in his car for half an hour. He was very friendly”. It would have been like shooting fish in a barrel to get his sig… but no one did.

I had seen him before at Mikhail Gorbachev‘s 80th birthday gala in 2011 at the Royal Albert Hall. He wasn’t signing but waved and smiled a lot. I waited amongst an ever increasing multitude to see him afterwards but he left through the side door under tight security.

I had drawn this sketch some time ago, based on the famous newspaper image of him celebrating victory. It was one of the bystanders – a Polish gentleman – that said to me “he’s pretty good at signing stuff through the mail – just send it to his foundation address in Gdansk.” So I did and voila! as they say in Polish, here it is!

Drawing: Ronnie the Rocket (Ronnie O’Sullivan)

Posted on May 8, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Ronnie “the Rocket” O’Sullivan is considered a genius in the world of snooker and one of the most naturally talented players in the history of the sport. Many regard him as the greatest player ever. His rapid, attacking style and ability to play right or left handed has won him five World Championships, five Masters and four UK Championship titles, known as the Triple Crown events.

In his sixth World Championship final earlier this week, at The Crucible, Ronnie was beaten by 18 frames to 14 by Mark Selby in a thriller and what many commentators believe was one of the best ever. On his way home, Ronnie and his son Ronnie Jnr were involved in a car crash on the M1, but walked away unscathed. Ronnie kindly signed and returned this sketch from The Crucible last week.