About Mark Winter / Chicane

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

Drawing: Dana Delany

Posted on May 28, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Dana Delany won two Emmy Awards for her portrayal of Captain Colleen Murphy, a nurse with the 510th Evac Hospital during the Vietnam War in the critically acclaimed American TV series China Beach.

During it’s four seasons (1988-91), Dana was also nominated for two more Emmy’s and two Golden Globe. She was was not successful with her first audition for the role. “They thought I wasn’t pretty enough.” Dana said it in interview. So she cut her hair into a bob and successfully re-auditioned when the producer lost their first choice.

In 1991 the readers of People magazine voted her on of the 50 Most Beautiful People In the World. In April 2011 Dana was again in the magazine’s 100 Most Beautiful list. She turned down the role of Carrie Bradshaw in the hit TV show Sex and the City, which went on to make Sarah Jessica Parker a household name.

She has recently been nominated for Outstanding Lead Performance at the Los Angeles Drama Critics’ Cirtcle Awards. fo rher role in The Parisian Woman, which had its world premiere at the South Coast Rep in Orange County.

With apologies to Jackson Pollock

Posted on May 27, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Nearby my hometown of Invercargill, New Zealand, there’s a small town named Bluff, right at the southern tip of the South Island.

Every year they celebrate their world class oysters with the Bluff Oyster & Food Festival. Every year (almost) the weather is wild and wet, and this year it was so stormy that the festival was forced to close early.

Inspired by Abstract Expressionism, and following in the footsteps of ‘Jack the Dripper’ I created this cartoon to mark the event. Unfortunately, it wasn’t published. But I had fun doing it. The published specimen is here:

Drawing: Ronnie Corbett

Posted on May 26, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Ronald Balfour Corbett is a beekeeper who keeps hives at his second home in East Lothian, Scotland. He’s also known as Ronnie Corbett, the comic legend and a half of The Two Ronnies with the late, great Ronnie Barker.

He’s best remembered for his unique monologues, sitting on a large chair (any normal chair with 4’11” Ronnie on it would look large) delivering rambling jokes that went off in divergent directions only to finally arrive at the original punchline that had long been forgotten. He’s been the biz for a long time. If fact, long enough to be awarded a CBE at Buckingham Palace in 2012. He recalls the Queen said “you’ve been doing this a long time, haven’t you?” and Ronnie replied, “over 50 years, but not as long as you.”

I like this quote I found, attributed to him: “We live in the same world, Bercow (speaker of the House of Commons since 2009) and me: not big enough to play James Bond; not small enough to be adopted by Madonna.”

I’ve met Ronnie on a few occasions in London at various premieres and press nights, but I can’t remember when he signed this sketch. I mailed it to him sometime in the 1980s when he performed in New Zealand, so it was either Auckland or Christchurch.

Drawing: Melanie Chisholm in Blood Brothers at the Phoenix Theatre

Posted on May 24, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Sporty Spice, Mel C, Melanie C or Melanie Jayne Chisholm as her parents called her, has sold more than 12 million records as a solo artist and over 100 million with the Spice Girls. She is second on the list of No.1 singles for a female artist in the UK. She is also the only female to reach No.1 as part of a quartet, a quintet, a duo and a solo.

In 2009 Melanie performed the role of Mrs Johnstone for six months in the musical Blood Brothers by Willy Russell in London’s Phoenix Theatre and was nominated for Best Actress in a musical at the 2010 Olivier Awards. She won a WhatsOnStage Award in 2013 for her portrayal of Mary Magdalen in the UK arena tour of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar.

I met Mel at the Phoenix Theatre stage door in December 2009. She was brilliant – bright and bubbly – with everyone and took the time to chat to the gathered admirers.

Drawing: Pat Cash

Posted on May 23, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The former World no. 4, Pat Cash won the Wimbledon Men’s Singles final in 1987 beating Ivan Lendl in straight sets. In fact he only lost one set in the entire tournament that year. To date he is the only player to win junior, tour and legends Wimbledon titles. Oh, yes and he plays guitar in his own band.

This is a very quick portrait sketch of Pat wearing his trade mark chequered bandana. I met Pat at the World Tennis Day at London’s Earls Court where he repeated his Wimbledon triumph over Ivan 8-6.

Drawing: Rhiannon Sommers in The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith

Posted on May 21, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Rhiannon Sommers played the free spirited fiery protagonist in Sir Arthur Wing Pinero’s The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith in a revival at the Jermyn Street Theatre this year.

Set in Venice in 1895, young widow Agnes Ebbsmith causes controversy when she runs off with the married Lucas Cleeve, a defecting Tory MP and they enter into a ‘compact’ without matrimonial constraints. She was known as ‘Mad Agnes’ a pale ‘witchy woman’ who preached socialism and free love to the working class where English ex-pat community well bred Victorian ladies would fear to tread. She was a vehement critic of all social conventions, especially marriage.

The shaky liaison hits a stumbling block with the arrival of Lucas’s family from London, led by his uncle the dangerous Duke of St Opherts to tempt his nephew back to the Westminster fleshpots. Guardian critic Michael Billington comments on the confrontation, “The best scenes are those where the militant Agnes confronts Lucas’s uncle. they come off well in Abby Wright’s production because Rhiannon Sommers suggests Agnes is more interested in defeating a class rival than holding on to Lucas.”

The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith completed its season on 3 May.

Drawing: Jemima Rooper in Blythe Spirit

Posted on May 20, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

One of the nicest people in ‘the business’ is 32 year old British actress Jemima Rooper. She apparently wrote “I want to act” in lipstick on her bed at the age of nine, so got an agent and had her first professional role in the 1993 film The Higher Mortals. Three years later she was George – a regular cast member in Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five while still at school. Her spirited approach to her acting may have been due to being an only child. She just wanted to “play imaginary games… dress up and be weird”.

Her busy career proves it’s no dead end job, but she has ventured into the afterlife for a few roles. She played the loveable lesbian ghost Thelma Bates in Sky’s occult-themed drama Hex for two seasons 2004-2005 and the mythological monster Medusa in the TV series Atlantis last year.

Currently she is in Blythe Spirit alongside theatre icon Dame Angela Lansbury during its run at London’s Gielgud Theatre. Playing the annoying and temperamental deceased first wife Elvira, Jemima is conjured on stage each performance by Angel’s Madame Arcati’s wayward seance.

I caught up with her between shows on Saturday as she floated out to get some tea. She’s always in high spirits and has was more than happy to sign the sketches.

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.