Blues and jazz singer songwriter Katie Melua was born in Georgia, but moved to Belfast in the aftermath of the Civil War, then to England at the age of fourteen. She was discovered by Mike Batt of ‘The Wombles’ fame, when he saw her at the Brit school for Performing Arts.
In 2006 she was the UK’s and Europe’s highest selling female artist. She has also appeared in Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse (2007). Katie signed my sketch in London in 2009.
How very cool… the Fonz – the coolest of the cool – signed my sketch. Henry Winkler AKA Arthur Fonzarelli from the hit TV series Happy Days is currently performing festive panto Peter Pan at the Richmond Theatre in Surrey.
The Golden Globe and Emmy Award winning actor reprises the role of Captain Hook. He appeared in his first pantomime at the New Wimbledon Theatre in 2005 replacing David Hasselhoff as J. M. Barries’ pirate antagonist.
I had a cunning plan to get a ‘graph from Tony Robinson. Best known for his portrayal of the buffoonish Baldrick in the BBC comedy series Blackadder. Tony… *clears throat* Sir Tony last appeared on stage in Alan Bennett’s Forty Years On in 1997.
He was knighted in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours for public and political service. He joked, “I also pledge that from this day on I’ll slaughter all unruly dragons and rescue damsels in distress who request my help.”
Tony returned to the stage after an absence of 16 years as Kenneth Grahame, narrating his much loved children’s classic The Wind in the Willows at the Duchess Theatre. Sir Tony signed my sketch going in for Saturday’s matinee… my plan was so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel…. well, maybe not a weasel, but a toad, or ratty or mole or even a badger.
English actress Sadie Frost has had a variety of film and TV roles from Casualty to a memorable vampire in Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
In 1999 she co-founded the fashion label Frost French, which won Elle Magazine’s Designer of the Year Award 2004. She was head of Natural Nylon Pictures with ex-husband Jude Law, and fellow actor Ewan McGregor and Johnny Lee Miller and now has set up Blonde to Black Pictures. In September 2006, aged 40, she posed nude for photographer Bryan Adams for a PETA anti-fur advert to coincide with London Fashion Week.
She made her West End debut in the one woman play Touched… For the very first time in 2009 and the following year starred in Fool for Love with Carl Barat, formerly of the Libertines at the Riverside Studios.
The New York Times in 2001 wrote that Andrew Lloyd Webber is “the most commercially successful composer in history”.
I was quite keen to get him to sign a sketch. His latest musical had its World Premiere at the Aldwych Theatre in London last night (19 December 2013).
Stephen Ward – The Musical charts the rise and fall from grace of the man behind the sixties Profumo scandal. The composer of the megahits Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar takes on a real life story of legal injustice, risky sex and the hypocrisy of the establishment.
Almost on cue, as the Lord arrived, a single lightning flash was followed by a roll of thunder, then the heavens opened with a monsoon proportion downpour (which may account for the roof of the 112 year old Apollo Theatre collapsing moments later).
The Aldwych Theatre occupies the corner of Aldwych and Drury Lane with little cover over the entrance. I was fortunate enough to position myself on the Drury Lane side when the Lord Lloyd-Webber’s vehicle stopped with ten minutes till curtain. I was the first to ask him for his ‘graph. He began it… then the deluge began… so he was escorted quickly to cover. I followed. He was in a hurry, but looked at the sketch and said, “very well done,” and signed it again in his distinctive script, before proceeding in to the comfort and dry of the auditorium.
Award winning British actress Tamzin Outhwaite is best known for her role as Melanie owen in the soap Eastenders, but has appeared in numerous other popular TV shows, including Dr Who, Hustle, Hotel Babylon and New Tricks.
She is also an accomplished stage performer. From November 2009 to March 2010 she starred in Sweet Charity which transferred to the Theatre Royal Haymarket after a successful run at the Menier Chocolate Factory. Tamzin signed my black biro sketch at the Theatre Royal in June 2010.
Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles teamed up again – this time on the West End boards. Their ‘partnership’ goes back to the late 70’s when Penelope, playing the forthright, plummy-accented widow Audrey fforbes-Hamilton and Peter as the debonaire millionaire Richard DeVere featured in the hugely popular British TV sitcom TO THE MANOR BORN. They also starred in the BAFTA-winning EXECUTIVE STRESS alongside Geoffrey Palmer. In 2010 they appeared at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in London for Sheridan’s comedy of manners, THE RIVALS, signing my black biro sketch at the theatre in December that year.
A couple of sketches of Daniel Radcliffe, from Equus on West End and Broadway, and also one from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which was Broadway only.
Daniel signed for me at the London premiere of The Woman in Black in 2012
My other Daniel Radcliffe sketch is here.
Jeff Fahey has starred in many indie classics, including the title role in the cult sci-fi hit The Lawnmower Man opposite Pierce Brosnan and Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse. Other films include Clint Eastwood’s White Hunter Black Heart; Silveradd and Wyatt Earp, both with Kevin Costner.
Jeff’s extensive television career includes playing the title role in The Marshal and most recently, the hit series Lost playing helicopter pilot Frank Lapidus. His humanitarian work involves assisting the establishment of the American University of Afghanistan, projects to assist orphans in Kabul and is a Global Ambassador on the US Committee for refugees and immigrants.
Jeff is part of a stellar cast in the latest West End revival of the classic courtroom drama Twelve Angry Men. He plays the estranged third juror – the last one to vote not guilty (Lee Jacob’s role in the 1957 movie). He signed and dedicated my sketch before yesterday’s matinée at the Garrick Theatre.
Australian comedian, satirist, artist, author and icon Barry Humphries is on his ‘Farewell Tour’ with Eat, Pray, Laugh, marking his retirement form live entertainment after more than fifty years in the business. Barry’s forte is always his one-man satirical revues in which he appears as a number of his character creations.
My sketch of Barry and his alter egos – acid-tongued gigastar housewife Dame Edna Everage, the inebriated cultural attaché Sir Les Patterson and the gentle ‘returned gentleman’ Sandy Stone. Barry signed it for me at the London Palladium where Eat, Pray, Laugh opened in the UK in November. Prior to a national provincial tour.
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