Drawing: Olivia Vinall in King Lear at the National Theatre

Posted on March 25, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

One of the brightest new stars shining on the London stage is 25 year old Olivia Vinall. Less than four years after graduating from Drama Studio London she has played three of Shakespeare’s iconic female roles – a path probably predicted in the stars given she was named after one of the Bard’s other famous females – Olivia in Twelfth Night.

Presently portraying Cordelia in the National Theatre’s King Lear, opposite the legendary Simon Russell Beale, she was Desdemona in Othello (also at the National) with Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet at the Leicester Square Theatre. Nominated for both an Evening Standard Theatre Award and a WhatsOnStage Award for her role as the Venetian beauty who tragically elopes with the older Othello.

Olivia also features in the National’s 50 Years On Stage Celebration with the current theatrical greats. I had the pleasure of meeting the delightful thespian after her Saturday afternoon performance, when she signed this sketch.

Drawing: Simon Russell Beale in King Lear at The National Theatre

Posted on March 24, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

I’m constantly drawn to Simon Russell Beale. I’ve sketched him on a number of occasions and will continue to do so. He’s an artist’s dream with such an expressive, animated face. He’s currently performing on the vast Olivier stage at the National Theatre in Shakespeare’s King Lear, directed once again by Sam Mendes.

“Simon’s great art is that he can take a role and turn it until it catches the light. Sometimes he only turns it tow degrees and bang,” Sam is quoted as saying.

It renews a long creative partnership between the two, beginning at the RSC in 1990 with Troilus and Cressida. It has included all the Bard’s greatest roles, but Lear is possibly the big one. It is the seventh Shakespeare play on which Simon has worked with Sam.

He’s an unorthodox Lear as a Stalinesque tyrant, dividing his Kingdom amongst his three daughters. It’s been in the frame for the best part of a decade and finally realised in this extraordinary epic. It’s not Simon’s first Lear, however. He did perform the role as a 17 year old schoolboy at Clifton College.

Simon signed this sketch after the Saturday performance. There are so many other renderings waiting in the wings, given the vast emotional arc he uses to portray the tragic monarch. Watch this space.

Drawing: Keir Charles and Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Mydidae

Posted on March 22, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Mydidae was written to fulfil a specific brief. DryWrite commissioned BAFTA award-winning writer Jack Thorne to create a play set entirely in a fully functioning bathroom. Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Keir Charles play Marian and David – a couple reaching the first anniversary of a shared personal tragedy. A controversial and intimate exploration of a relationship with its different perspectives and conflicting views when loss and pain can mutate into blame and guilt that delivers a brutal jolt.

Mydidae premiered at the Soho Theatre in 2012 before transferring to the Trafalgar Studios in March 2013.

Drawing: Scarlett Johansson

Posted on March 21, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Scarlett Ingrid Johansson has twice appeared on the Broadway boards. Her debut in Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge garnered her a Tony Award in 2010. A hard act to follow, but follow it she did with another acclaimed stage performance, as Maggie ‘the cat’ in Tennessee Williams 1955 Pulitzer Prize winning classic Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Richard Rodgers Theatre for a 15 week engagement in late 2012.

Scarlett signed my sketch of her in her role as Maggie last night at the UK premiere of Captain America: The Winter Soldiers at London’s Westfield Vue Cinema.

Drawing: Meera Syal in Shirley Valentine at Trafalgar Studios

Posted on March 20, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

British actress,comedian,writer,singer and producer Meera Syal transformed herself into SHIRLEY VALENTINE at London’s Trafalgar Studios in July 2010. Written by Willy Russell,it follows the monologue of a middle aged Liverpool housewife who finds herself talking to walls as she prepares her husband’s egg’n chips,wondering where her life has gone. Critic Peter Brown said her performance was ” totally absorbing..keeping the entire audience rivited throughout.” Meera signed my sketch on 29.7.10 at the stage door.

Drawing: Emily Joyce in Yes Prime Minister at the Gielgud Theatre

Posted on March 19, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

In 2010 Emily Joyce appeared as the Prime Minister’s special policy advisor, Claire Sutton in Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn’s stage version of Yes, Prime Minister. The production premiered at the Chichester Festival in May before transferring to the Gielgud Theatre in the West End in the autumn. Emily signed my biro sketch in January 2011 at the theatre’s stage door.

Drawing: Tara Fitzgerald

Posted on March 18, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Another quick sketch of British actress Tara Fitzgerald – this time in fine black biro. Since her first stage role opposite the late, great Peter O’Toole in Our Song in 1992 at the Apollo, she has divided her career between screen and stage.

Tara signed this drawing during The Misanthrope season at the Comedy Theatre on Christmas Eve in 2009

Drawing: Simon Callow in Being Shakespeare

Posted on March 16, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

One of Britain’s finest actors, Simon Callow brought his acclaimed one-man show Being Shakespeare back to London for a strictly limited season at the Harold Pinter theatre. Written by Jonathan Bate and directed by Tom Cairns, the show ran for 23 performances, finishing last night (15 March 2014).

The production returned following two successful runs in the West End. The Guardian’s Michael Billington described it as “a memorably multidimensional picture of Shakespeare steeped in scholarship and love”. Simon brings to life the Bard’s unforgettable characters and the real man behind the legend.

2014 marks the 450th anniversary of the birth of the world’s greatest playwright.

Drawing: Dame Kiri Te Kanawa

Posted on March 15, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

New Zealand icon Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is one of the world’s most beloved sopranos and the leading operatic performer of the 70s and 80s. She has announced her retirement with the cameo role of the Duchess of Crackentorp in Donizetti’s La Fille du Regiment at London’s Royal Opera House. The ‘Duchess’ is written as a speaking part, but Dame Kiri has been given an aria to sing in her final appearance at Covent Garden.

Dame Kiri kindly signed this sketch on her 70th birthday, which was celebrated on stage after the performance with a cake delivered by fellow Downton Abbey cast member Jim Carter

Drawing: Natalie Casey in 9 to 5

Posted on March 14, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Natalie Casey was three when she recorded the single ‘Chick, Chick, Chick’, which reached number 72 on the UK charts, making her the youngest person to do so. She appeared on the BBC and asked Boy George to take her to the toilet!

But, Natalie is probably better known for her long-running roles in the TV series Hollyoaks (from 1995-2000) and playing Donna Henshaw in Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps (2001-2011).

I met Natalie at Wyndham’s Theatre in 2012 after a performance in the revival of Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party. She was really friendly and great to talk to. She signed this sketch at The Mayflower Theatre in Southampton during the UK Tour of Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 in May last year.