About Mark Winter / Chicane

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

Drawing: Lydia Ko

Posted on July 14, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Seventeen year old New Zealand golfing sensation Lydia Ko played the Women’s British Open at Royal Birkdale (20 miles north of Liverpool) this week, ranked No 2 in the world.

She was the world’s top ranked amateur golfer for 130 weeks before turning professional in October 2013. Born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in New Zealand, Lydia began playing golf as 5 year old, when her mother took her to a pro shop at the Pupuke Golf Club in Auckland. In April 2014 she was named one of TIME Magazines’s 100 most influential people.

Lydia signed my sketch on a practice day at the famous Merseyside Course.

Drawing: Bernard Jordan The Great Escaper

Posted on July 12, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The story that knocked the speeches of world leaders and royalty off the front pages during last month’s 70th Anniversary of the D-Day Landings in Normandy during World War II was Bernard Jordan. Bernard, 89, served as an officer in the Royal Navy at the D-Day landings. He was part of Operation Overlord.

He captured the hearts of millions and became Britain’s favourite runaway, sneaking out of the Pines Nursing Home in Hove to join compatriots at the commemoration on Normandy Beach, sparking a frantic missing persons search. The staff had tried to get Jordan a place on the tour with the Royal British Legion, but it was fully booked.

He summarised the spirit and determination of June 6, 1944 and hatched a cunning plan. On the Thursday morning, wearing a grey mac to hide the medals pinned on his best suit, Bernard slipped out of the houme, headed to Brighton station and caught a train to Portsmouth. He found a party of veterans on the dockside and hitched a ride on a ferry to Normandy.

He lacked accreditation, but managed to evade security to be within 100 yards of the Queen and other world leaders.

He returned home, not to the telling off he feared, but a hero’s welcome and a cup of tea. “I had a good time, every minute of it. I’m pleased I did it. I’d do it again tomorrow,” he said.

The former Mayor of Hove was honoured with the Freedom of the City for “capturing the imagination of a generation.” On his 90th birhtday a week later he was overhelmed with 2,500 cards from around the world, including one from me and this sketch, which he kindly signed and returned.

Drawing: Julie Atherton as Kate Monster in Avenue Q

Posted on July 11, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Julie Atherton was part of the original West End cast of the musical Avenue Q when it transferred from Broadway to the Noël Coward Theatre in June 2006. She played Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut until December 2007, returning to the production at the Gilegud in late 2008 until October 2009. I saw the show in June that year where Julie signed these sketches for me.

Julie will be playing the lead role in Thérèse Raquin at the Park Theatre in London from 31 July to 24 August 2014.

Drawing: Mark Rylance, Miriam Margolyes, Simon McBurney and Tom Hickey in Endgame

Posted on July 10, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

‘Graph collecting in London in the dead of winter. What better than to stalk a Samuel Beckett play to match the cold, dark and bleak elements. The fourth revival in a decade of Beckett’s Endgame at the Duchess Theatre, considered along with Waiting for Godot to be among his most important works. One critic said it was like “watching a world edge into darkness.” Beeckett liked his plays to be as colourlesss as posssible. This one seems to be set in a grey area somehere near the end of the literary universe. The title is taken from the last part of a chess game, when there are very few pieces left. It involves four characters; Hamm, who is blind and unable to stand; Clov, a servant, unable to sit; Nagg, Hamm’s father with no legs and lives in a dustbin and Hamm’s mother, Nell, who also lives in a dustbin next to her husband and has no legs. Simon McBurney directed te production and played Clov, with Mark Rylance as Hamm. It also featured Tom Hickey as Nagg and Miriam Margolyes as Nell. The Duchess is on of the few West End Theatres to have veranda over the stage door, because it’s only a few metres away form the man entrance. However, on a particularly inclement November night in 2009, driving horizontal rain with extras rendered it useless – in fact it became a collection point for large quantities of H2O and acted as a a sieve. thankfully one drip landed on my caption text and not the artwork or sigs. God respects ‘graphers, me thinks.

Drawing: Imogen Stubbs in Little Eyolf at the Jermyn Street Theatre

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Actress and playwright Imogen Stubbs is a veteran of over 40 plays, starting with the role of Sally Bowles in Cabaret at the Wolsey Theatre in 1985. In 2011 she took her most harrowing part as Rita in Henrik Ibsen’s 1894 play Little Eyolf at the Jermyn Street Theatre in London.

“No one could describe Ibsen’s play as fun, but Imogen Stubb’s performance almost blows the roof off the theatre,” wrote Charles Spencer in The Telegraph.

Imogen’s most recent foray onto the West End boards was Strangers On A Train. She signed this sketch for me at the Jermyn Street Theatre in May 2011.

Drawing: Jonathan Pryce in The Caretaker at Trafalgar Studios

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Welsh actor Jonathan Pryce is equally at home on screen and stage. Critically lauded for his versatility, Jonathan’s breakthrough film performance was in Terry Gilliam’s 1985 cult film Brazil. Five years earlier he won the Olivier Award for his title role in the Royal Court’s production of Hamlet. In his Broadway debut he won the Tony for Comedians in 1997. He collected his second Olivier and Tony for playing the engineer in Miss Saigon.

Jonathan’s filmography includes The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man’s Chest, Evita, Glengarry Glen Ross, Tomorrow Never Dies and Carrington, for which he won the Best Actor award at Cannes. Jonathan was also nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his role as Henry Kravis in the 1993 television film Barbarians At The Gate.

While starring in the National’s My Fair Lady his co-star Martine McCutcheon was so frequently absent that he made an appeal form the stage for any member of the audience who fancied playing Eliza to make themselves known.

In 2010 he played Davies, the loquacious tramp in Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker at the Trafalgar Studios in London. It transferred from an initial run at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre. He had previously appeared in the National Theatre’s 1981 production of the play in the role of Mick, the dangerous young hustler. “It’s one of those plays you graduate through in the course of your life,” Jonathan was quoted.

Drawing: Grigor Dimitrov

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Twenty three year old Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov was another young tennis star to shine at this year’s Wimbledon.

Prior to his professional career he was the World Junior No. 1, winning the 2008 Wimbledon and US Open titles. He reached the semi final at the Championships this year, beating reigning champion Andy Murray in straight sets.

In the semi he battled back and had three consecutive set points in a fourth set tie break, but lost to the eventual tournament winner Novak Djokovic 6-4, 3-6, 7-6, 7-6. However, it was enough for Grigor to move into the World top ten with the No 9 spot in the ATP rankings, one ahead of Andy.

Drawing: Nick Kyrgios

Posted on July 5, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The overnight sensation of this year’s Wimbledon has been 19 year old Nick Kyrgios, the 1.93m Australian teenager with a Greek father and a Malaysian mother. Making his debut at SW19, he was playing courtesy of a wild card entry and ranked 144 in the world. Very few thought he had any chance of beating world number 1, Rafa Nadal on centre court in the fourth round. Four sets later he produced the shock of the tournament, blitzing the two time champion 7-6 (7-5), 5-7, 7-6 (7-5), 6-3.

He put his motivation down to his mother’s prediction that he would lose. “My mum said Rafa was too good for me and it made me a bit angry.”

In the second round he saved nine match points to beat 13th seed Richard Gasquet, but fell to Canadian eighth seed Milos Raonic in the quarters. However, from a ranking of 838 last season, he is guaranteed to read the mid 60s. Going into the quarter finals, Nick was leading the ace standing with 113. A staggering 37 of those were bashed past Nadal. He is donating £5 for every ace served at Wimbledon to the Rally for Bally fund – set up in memory of former British No 1 Elena Baltacha.

His cheeky ‘tweener’ – a beteen the legs stoke that sent the ball out of Nadal’s reach, went viral on YouTube, amassing more than 500,000 views. I was actually at The Championsoips on ‘the’ day and watched events unfold from ‘the hill’, amongst a very vocal group of Aussie supporters and manged to get this sketch to him the next day, which he signed and returned along with a clipping from The Times reporting his sensational victory.

Drawing: Gemma Arterton in The Duchess of Malfi at Shakespeare’s Globe

Posted on July 4, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Gemma Arterton made her professional stage debut at Shakespeare’s Globe in 2007, with huge critical acclaim as Rosaline in Loves’s Labour’s Lost while still a student at RADA. She returned at the beginning of the year to play the title role in the Jacobean tragedy The Duchess of Malfi by English dramatist John Webster directed by Dominic Dromgoole.

It opened the curtain on the inaugural season at the Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse – an intimate 340 seat indoor Jacobean theatre, built from authentic designs and craftsmanship of the period. It is named after the director and actor who founded the modern recreation of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. The conspiratorial atmosphere is enhanced with the 17th century practice of being lit almost solely by beeswax candles.

The Duchess is one of the great theatrical roles for women and Gemma jumped at the chance to play her on such a magical stage. “It’s like Tarantino,” she said, “there’s mass bloodshed, incest, violence, lots of kick-arse stuff and everybody dies in the end.” Gemma’s own death scene is gruesome. She is strangled with two ropes pulling in opposing directions for nearly ten minutes.

Drawing: Andrew Scott, Lisa Dillon and Tom Burke in Design for Living

Posted on July 3, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Initially banned in the UK, Noël Coward’s 1932 provocative, witty, dark, bisexual comedy Design For Living had a major revival at London’s Old Vic in the Winter of 2010.

Directed by Old Vic Associate and Tony Award winner Anthony Page, the production featured Tom Burke (Otto), Lisa Dillon (Gilda) and Andrew Scott (Leo) as the menage-a-trois in this three act, two interval play.

Otto is a painter, Leo is a playwright and Gilda is an interior designer. The lines of engagement are: Gilda lives with artist Otto, but is equally drawn to playwright Leo. The two men, however, have enjoyed intimacy that predates Gilda.

Critic Michael Billington said, “the play offers a genuine contest between the bohemian talentocracy and moral orthodoxy. It is an attack on bourgeois stuffiness.”

As Leo puts it, “I love you. You love me. You love Otto. I love Otto. Otto loves you. Otto loves me,” providing the basis for the play’s plot convolutions.