About Mark Winter / Chicane

Cartoonist. Artist. Illustrator. Oh, and autograph hunter.

Drawing: Tim Pigott-Smith in King Charles III

Posted on September 22, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Mike Barlett’s audacious new play King Charles III had its World Premiere at London’s Almeida Theatre in April this year (2014). It transferred to the Wyndham’s Theatre in the West End last week.

Helmed by Almeida’s Artistic Director Rupert Goold, it featured veteran actor Tim Pigott-Smith as Prince Charles who ascends the throne after his mother dies. The play centres on the pressures and purposes of the monarchy today.

It’s the first major play written in blank verse that the West End has seen for a very long time. The playwright wrote in iambic pentameter (the meter used by the Bard when writing verse, having ten syllables in each line – five pairs of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables) because he wanted the play to be a Shakespearean drama; a family epic in five acts, complete with a ghost and a comic subplot.

The smash hit received glowing reviews. The Telegraph states, “attendance is compulsory”. Michael Billington said “Tim Pigott-Smith gives the performance of his distinguished career”. Its original three month booking has been extended already.

Drawing: Toby Stephens and Anna-Louise Plowman in Private Lives at the Gielgud Theatre

Posted on September 20, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Husband and wife team Toby Stephens and Anna-Louise Plowman appeared in Noël Coward’s classic comedy Private Lives at the Gielgud Theatre in July 2013.

A married couple playing a married couple; the line between reality and fiction becomes blurred and hard to define – a bit of ‘dramatic ambiguity’. It was the second time they played newly-weds Elyot and Sybil after a successful run at Chichester the previous Autumn. The entire cast, including Anna Chancellor and Anthony Calf, transferred to the West End.

Coward’s tale is of former lovers Elyot and Amanda who meet five years after their divorce while both on honeymoon with new amours. Reignited passion follows. Toby’s parents Dame Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens previously starred in a John Gielgud directed production of the same play, alongside Anthony’s mother-in-law Polly Adams.

Toby and Anna-Louise both co-produced the London transfer and both happily signed my sketch the stage door on an autumnal evening in September 2013.

Drawing: Daniel Mays in Trelawny of the Wells at the Donmar Warehouse

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

British actor Daniel Mays’ impressive list of credentials extend beyond the screen to the stage. Recently part of the stellar cast in Mojo at the Pinter, Daniel preceded it with his role as the pretentious thespian Ferdinand Gadd who fervently believes his audience can no longer be denied his Orlando in the wonderfully funny Trelawny of the Wells at the Domar Warehouse in London in 2013.

After directing such films as Atonement and Anna Karenina, this was Joe Wright’s first play, and he chose Pinero’s warm hearted tibute to the theatrical medium itself, written in 1898. Daniel was nominated for the WhatsOnStage Best Supporting Actor Award for his roles in both Trelawny and Mojo

Drawing: Paula Creamer “The Pink Panther”

Posted on September 18, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

American golfer Paula Creamer has won 12 tournaments, including 10 LPGA Tour events since her rookie year in 2005. That included the 2010 US Women’s Open.

Nicknamed ‘The Pink Panther’ due to her fondness for wearing pink, Pink Panther club covers and sometimes playing with pink balls, Paula has been as high as number 2 in the Women’s World Golf Rankings.

She recently competed in the final major the year – the Evian Championship at the Evian Resort Club in Evian-les-Banis, finishing seventh after a strong finish wit a bogey-free 66 in the final round. The former champion (2005) signed my sketch at the resort last week… in blue, not pink.

Oh yes, and the other thing, she travels with her dog, a Coton de Tulear called Studley.

Drawing: Joanna Page

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The delightful Welsh actress Joanna Page not only signed my sketch, she sent me a complimentary note with it. After graduating from RADA she spent ten years treading the boards in costume dramas at the National and for the Royal Shakespeare Company, followed by film appearances, including Miss Julie and Love, Actually. But she is probably best known for her lead role in the BBC comedy Gavin & Stacey, playing Stacey the bubbly protagonist from Barry.

Speaking to the Radio Times, Joanna said that despite all her roles, the character of Stacey is the one she still identifies with the most. “I think I will always be seen as this small, blonde 20 year old, even in my fifties. I will be like Felicity Kendall is now.”

Drawing: Richard Armitage in The Crucible at the Old Vic Theatre

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Maybe it was because he’s Robin Hood on the telly, or more lily because he is Thorin Oakenshield in Perter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy that accounted for the hoards of people – mostly female – that became part of the nightly vigil to meet Richard Armitage outside the Old Vic stage door in London during its recent season of The Crucible.

At the heart of Arthur Miller’s tale of religious hysteria in the Salem Witch trials of 1692 was an immense performance as John Proctor from Richard. Apparently his first stage part was playing an elf in a production of The Hobbit at the Alex Theatre in Birmingham. His appearance certainly created some offstage hysteria as well.

Once again I left it to the final week to try and get a sketch signed, with the excepted consequences. Actually, as a back up I did leave one a couple of months earlier at the theatre, but it hadn’t appeared through the mail box by the time the last few days rolled around. This sketch was a quick one of Richard and Samantha Colley in rehearsal.

At three and a half hours The Crucible‘s Finish time was 11pm, giving a small window of opportunity before the last train home. The line stretched along the entire side wall of the Old Vic, from stage door to front door. I was positioned three quarters down it with tales of woe by ardent ‘Armitagees’ that he doesn’t always complete the line. This night he did, but very quickly. To accommodate everyone’s demands he used the abbreviated initials ‘RA’ not the full version. ‘RA’ with a tail and lower case ‘g’ slipped near the end like an abandoned hair clip. Still, he quickly graphed my drawing and moved on.

Drawing: Nick Moran in Twelve Angry Men at The Garrick Theatre

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Twelve Angry Men was originally written for television in 1954, later adapted as a feature film with Henry Fonda, then for the stage.

The real-time jury room drama, in which a lone crusader for justice (Juror 8) persuades his unforgiving fellow white jurors that the unseen black prisoner on trial for his life may not be guilty, returned to the London stage at the Garrick Theatre at the end of 2013 and early 2014.

Nick Moran, “every mum’s favourite angel-faced thug” (as described by The Spectator), is Juror 7, a nervy, clownish, spivvy marmalade salesman, impatient to delivery any verdict so he can slope off to watch a ball game. He was part of an impressive ensemble cast that included Martin Shaw, Robert Vaughn, Jeff Fahey, Miles Richardson and Tom Conti.

Drawing: Joanna Riding in The Pajama Game at The Shaftesbury Theatre

Posted on September 13, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Joanna Riding is one of the true gems of British musical theatre. In a sparkling career that began at the Chichester Festival Theatre in the 80s she has been nominated for four Olivier Awards, winning two, for her role as Julie Jordan in Nicholas Hytner’s revival of Carousel at the National Theatre in 1993 and her performance as Eliza Doolittle in Trevor Nunn‘s revival of My Fair Lady in 2003, also at the National.

This is a quick sketch of Joanna as Babe Williams, the feisty Union rep at the Sleep-Tite Garment Factory in Richard Eyre’s wonderful production of the 1954 Broadway classic The Pajama Game. The West End Transfer from Chichester completes a limited season at London’s Shaftesbury Theatre today, trailing five star reviews.

Drawing: Denise Van Outen as Roxie Hart in Chicago at the Adelphi Theatre

Posted on September 12, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Denise van Outen’s most memorable musical role was the vaudevillian murderess Roxie Hart in the hit musical Chicago at the Adelphi Theatre in London’s West End in 2001. The twenty week run completely sold out. She reprised the role on Broadway in the spring of 2002, before returning to the London production.

Denise signed this sketch I did of her in the role at the Arts Theatre in London after he performance in the one woman musical play Some Girl I Used To Know which she also wrote with Terry Ronald.

Drawing: Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess in Love Never Dies at the Adelphi Theatre

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Love Never Dies – the sequel to Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s long running musical The Phantom of the Opera opened at the Adelphi Theatre in London’s West End on 9 March 2010. Ramin Karimloo played the title role with Sierra Boggess as Christine. They coined the term ‘Rierra’. Ramin was the Phantom in the original West End production and the show’s 21st anniversary Phantom in 2007.

Sierra was cast in the Las Vegas production of Phantom in the role of Christien Daaé at the Venetian Resort in 2006. Both Ramin and Sierra were nominated for Olivier Awards, and the production received seven nominations. They signed by sketch after the world premiere at the Adelphi Theatre stage door in pouring rain on 9 March 2010.