Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine are Britain’s favourite fashionistas. Their cutting comments and no-nonsense approach made them household names during the early noughties. The small screen makeover Queens ‘What Not To Wear’ ran for five seasons with UK viewing figures peaking in 2004 at 7.42million.
They visited the Westfield Shopping Centre in Albany, Auckland, New Zealand in February 2008, where they signed my black biro sketch.
Jeeves & Wooster: Perfect Nonsense continues with a new cast at the Duke of York’s in London.
Robert Webb is the effervescent, aristocratic fool Bertie Wooster, and Mark Heap is his dutiful valet Jeeves, replacing original cast members Stephen Mangan and Matthew Macfadyen. It won the best comedy at this year’s Olivier Awards.
BAFTA winning Robert is one half of the double act Mitchell and Webb, alongside David Mitchell, best known for the successful and long running TV series Peep Show.
Mark is well known to TV audiences as the pompous Dr Alan Statham in Green Wing and a variety of other appearances, including Skins, Hotel Babylon and Miranda.
The Daily Telegraph gave the new cast a four star review, saying, “this production remains as big a hoot as before”. Robert and Mark continue until 28 June.
I remember meeting Tom Hiddleston at the UK premiere of Joanna Hogg’s Archipelago at The Vue Cinema in Leicester Square. It was in competition for the BFI London Film Festival and a twilight screening, but certainly the dawn of Tom’s career.
Sandwiched between two ‘bigger’ films that attracted large crowds, Archipelago only had a sprinkling of attendees – most of them curious tourists. Tom went unnoticed.
He was already an accomplished stage actor, with two Olivier Award nominations and in fact won one. But I recognised him from the poster and one of the PAs confirmed it “oh yes, that’s Tom Hiddleston, he’s going to be a big star one day. I’ll call him over, if you want his autograph.” So he did and Tom duly obliged. His long moniker took time, even with his speedy style!
We joked that he may have to shorten it when he becomes really famous and having to sign zillions for premiere crowds. Well, the PA was right. He is now a global superstar, thanks to roles such as Loki in Marrel’s Thor series and his signature varies wildly, depending on the moment. But I still have one perfectly formed, every letter (well almost) visible.
Fast forward to the quaint 350 seat Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden. Tom is in the title role of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, directed by Josie Rourke. Seventy performances, eight shows, a week of physically and mentally demanding play. He is bruised, battered and scarred! Critics loved him, “Tom Hiddleston has blazing stellar power… magnificent,” wrote the Independent. His fans adored him.
They gathered by their hundreds, covering both exits in a nightly vigil. Tom would come out under tight security, sign for a few and then quickly leave. I didn’t have a hope. I left a sketch at the theatre, but it was only one piece of mail among thousands for the ‘man of the moment’.
He was nominated for an Olivier Award so I managed to secure a spot at the Royal Opera House, dominated by Tom’s fans. He even signed down my side, but it was bedlam and the sketch went unnoticed in a sea of items wanting his sig, which had reduced to some quick scribble.
Plan C, Canada. I found out he was still shooting Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak at the Pinewood Studios in Toronto. I packaged up the sketch and mailed it, and set about formulating Plan D. To my surprise, it arrived in the post yesterday. Tom had also written his line from the scene (3.2.14) – “Rather say I play the man I am.”
Plan D was shelved.
Adrian Scarborough is currently playing The Fool in Sam Mendes “magnetic and unorthodox” production of King Lear, in repertory on the vast Olivier stage at the National Theatre in London. His “lovely-melancholy” turn has garnered rave reviews as Lear’s beloved Fool who batters to death in what the Times called “a startling innovation”.
“His death in a bath tub is sudden and shocking, an example of the coin spin between comedy and tragedy that Mendes manages so well,” said critic Tom Wicker.
Equally at home on both stage and screen, Adrian has appeared in films such as The Madness of King George, Vera Drake, The History Boys, Gosford Park, The King’s Speech and Les Miserables. On the smaller screen he has featured in Gavin and Stacey, Upstairs Downstairs and even an episode of Dr Who.
Adrian was nominated for two Olivier in 2011 for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in the National’s Revival of Terence Rattigan’s After the Dance.
King Lear runs until 2 July 2014.
Elizabeth “Lizzy” Yarnold won Great Britain’s first gold medal of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi after dominating the women’s skeleton from start to finish. It meant that Team GB retained the title won by Amy Williams four years earlier in Vancouver. She also won the World Cup for 2013-2014. For the uninitiated ‘the skeleton’ is a sliding sport in which a person rides a small sled head first down a frozen ice chute at 130km. Madness!
Like many Winter Olympic Sports, it’s an elite event. You have to become part of the programme, which obviously Lizzy did, being picked by the Girls 4 Gold talent spotting drive in women’s sport. But she was picked for her shot putting ability! Then a series of tests revealed she would be better as a skeleton racer, similar to Amy, who was a converted 400 metres runner. Her sled is called ‘Mervyn’.
In spite of thriving at standup, Sara Pascoe says, “I started comedy as a hobby and it still doesn’t seem like a proper job.”
The 32 year old actor, improviser and writer started standup in 2007, “It’s the one place where you are talking to every level of society”.
She now has a TB career on both sides of the Atlantic with appearances on Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Stand up for the Week QI (in which she won with a +28 score) and Live at the Apollo as well as the all female Girl Friday on Channel 4, which she co-wrote.
She’s influenced by media personality, body builder and occasional glamour model Jodie Marsh, as well as Winston Churchill. Sara had a three night gig at London’s Soho Theatre last week entitled Sara Pascoe: Sara Pascoe Cs The Truth which The Guardian described as “intelligent silliness and self deprecation to make a near perfect show”. She recognised herself in my sketch after her opening performance and was happy to acknowledge it with my Sharpie.
“Irreverent, sacrilegious, foul mouthed and uninhibited” are just some of the words the New York Times used to describe the beloved, brave and bawdy Wau Wau (pronounced Vow Vow) Sisters. Tanya Gagne and Adrienne Truscott have collaborated as the physical comedy duo since 1999 with their unique blend of singing, witty banter, aerial high-jinks and bawdy burlesque usually with costumes, but no clothes!
New Yorker Adreinne has just completed a season of her latest side show Asking For It at the Sohoo Theatre in London. Dressed only from the waist up and ankles down. It won the Edinburgh Comedy Award Panel Prize in 2013 .
The satirical broadside against rape culture and a string of male performers aggressively asserting their right to tell jokes about it was described by The Guardian in its five star review as ‘sophisticated confrontationalism’.
As she states in her Twitter profile “I’m a performer first, and a Lady second”. I met both after last Thursday’s show and one of them signed my sketch, which the other one really liked.
Labelled America’s premiere bouffon, Eric Davis is best known for creating the role of Allen Smithee in Cirque du Soleil’s Iris, and for the past ten years, the ‘dangerous comedy’ monster, ‘Red Bastard’. According to his website, Red Bastard’s mission is to charm, disarm, shock and seduce. His target: you!
It’s described as: “no holds barred theatre, demanding to know nothing less than the existential query ‘who the hell do you think you are?'”.
The show is an interactive feast of biting wit, improvisation and physical prowess. Eric based the shape on the Palaeolithic limestone figurine “Venus of Willendorf” and said it “fulfilled the primal, almost religious, ritual function of theatre” as he continually pushes the audiences psychological buttons.
Audiences are warned to be prepared for anything to happen – raw conversations, provocations, traps, rewards and catch 22s. Lines will be crossed, laughs will be had. Eric’s persona signed my sketch at the Pleasance Theatre during his London run earlier this month.
London born Emily Blunt returned to her home town for the early morning premiere of Edge of Tomorrow. It was the start of a very long day for the Golden Globe winner and Tom Cruise who embarked on a one day global three city premiere marathon which began at the BFI iMax, before flying to Paris and then on to New York.
Having just given birth to her baby daughter, Hazel, in February, Emily said she was used to getting minimal sleep and thought she would last the enduring schedule in better shape than Tom. So it was a fresh Emily who happily signed my sketch between rain drops before jetting off.
Tom Cruise and co-star Emily Blunt embarked on an epic three cities in one 24 hour premiere marathon to launch their latest film Edge of Tomorrow. London first thing, Paris in the afternoon and New York for a late night screening. That mean a real early premiere at the BRI iMax in London. Tom arrive at 6.45am, others had gathered hours earlier in the persistent precipitation. The iMax’s circular design acts more as a sieve than as a shelter, as the showers swept through. However the did serve us coffee and tea and water.
Tom plays an inexperienced soldier in a futuristic conflict who uses a time loop to help Earth battle an alien invasion. he keeps living the same day over and over again, never reaching the tomorrow of the title. The premieres echoed the films complex plot.
I drew this sketch of Tom as the fading rock god Stacee Jaxx in 2012’s Rock of Ages, a film adaption of the 2006 Chris D’Arienzo comedy Broadway musical of the same name.
His performance received unanimous critical acclaim. He spent two months in vocal training and learning the guitar, singing five hours a day.
He loved the sketch , “that’s such a great drawing”. Given his hectic schedule and tight travel arrangements ahead, the PAs were anxious to kep him moving, but he was calm as always and great with the drenched fans. He had a silver Sharpie, but was more than happy ti sing the sketch wit a black one.
:that role was so much fun… and I like that drawing,” as the minders moved him along the line, replacing my black Sharpie with the silver one, then off to Paris.
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