Category Archives: Celebrity

Drawing: The Elephant Man at Theatre Royal Haymarket

Posted on by
Reply

the elephant man

The Tony-nominated Broadway production of Bernard Pomerance’s The Elephant Man with Bradley Cooper, Alessandro Nivola and Patricia Clarkson ended its three-month West End run at London’s Theatre Royal, Haymarket on Saturday.

Based on the real life of the severely deformed Joseph Merrick (Bradley), it tells the story of renowned physician Frederick Treves ( Alessandro) who rescues him from a travelling freak show to live his short life in the safe and secure environs of a London hospital.  While there he becomes friends with the beautiful actress Mrs kendal (Patricia) who is deeply touched by his pure and genuine soul.

I had drawn individual sketches of all three leads, which they signed for me in the opening week. I also did this composite sketch of them, which I wasn’t going to bother getting signed…but at the last minute, well the final day, I thought, why not? There are essentially three chances to catch the cast on a Saturday-going in,coming out after the matinee, coming out after the evening performance. Technically four, if you count them returning from the matinee exit. Right, that sorted, I aimed for after the matinee. Only Alessandro appeared and, as usual was extremely charming and complimentary about the drawing and signed. I asked him what he was doing next, he said a film with Robert De Niro…”A bit of a come down then?,” I quipped…a questionable attempt at humour. He laughed! Such a polite man. The very efficient stage manager let the crowd know that Bradley and Patricia would not be coming out, so that saved waiting time. Since I had one, I was now obliged to get the other two to complete the task. When I returned after the final performance, the barriers were packed, six deep, which made that task a little more tricky. My many years of stalking experience..I stop short of calling it prowess..enabled me to eventually secure a spot three deep, amongst a number of gushing Bradleybabes, (sorry, I’m not familiar with what a collective of his adoring female public are called ) ready to get selfies…not siggys. The man himself  eventually appeared and as he had done for the entire run ,”did the line’. While the gazillion selfies were being taken he spotted my sketch which I was trying to hold in a strategic position and not get in the way of anyone’s photograph and reached over for it. I asked him to dedicate it ‘To Mark” and he said “got it…thanks”. After he left the throng subsided, so it was much easier to get Patricia, who said she had loved her time in London..oh and the drawing.

Drawing: Anna Chancellor and Nicholas Farrell in South Downs / The Browning Version

Posted on by
Reply

The Browning Version

2011 marked the centenary year of Terence Rattigan’s birth and celebrations of his work swept the UK. One Telegraph critic labelled it, “an outbreak of Rattigan-worship”. Considered one of the most influential dramatists of the 20th century, Sir Terence’s works include The Winslow Boy, The Deep Blue Sea, After The Dance and The Browning Version.

The latter, his one act masterpiece written in 1948, was part of a mouth watering double bill with South Downs, David Hare’s contemporary response, written at the invitation of the Rattigan estate.

Both examine life in a boarding public school and revolve around unexpected acts of kindness, one from the perspective of a pupil and the other from that of a teacher. The Browning Version is based on Rattigan’s classics teacher at Harrow, and Hare wrote South Downs using his days at Lancing College as a backdrop.

Following a sellout run at the Chichester’s Festival Theatre Minerva Stage, it transferred to the West End’s Harold Pinter Theatre in April 2012 for a three month season. Both pieces featured Anna Chancellor and Nicholas Farrell as leads. In South Downs, Anna plays Belinda Duffield and Nicholas is the Rev. Eric Dewley. In The Browning Version, Nicholas plays the despised departing teacher Andrew Crocker-Harris and Anna his unfaithful wife, Millie.

All the mainstream print media gave it no less than four stars. Charles Spencer in The Telegraph wrote “I gave it a rave review and five stars (at Chichester). Seeing it again on its transfer to the West End, it strikes me as an even greater achievement than it did then. If South Downs is a very good play then The Browning Version is an disputably great one. Nicolas Farrell’s performance is extraordinary and there is wonderful support from Anna Chancellor.”

Both Anna and Nicholas signed this montage sketch of both their respective characters at the Pinter stage door in July 2012.

Nicholas actually apologised for the slight variation in his usual autograph, correcting the initial spelling of his Christian name because he was “distracted by looking at the excellent sketch” while signing.

Drawing: James and Jack Fox in Dear Lupin

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Lupin

Continuing the theme of yesterday’s post about parents and their children currently sharing the London stage, Dear Lupin opened this week at the Apollo Theatre, with father and son, James and Jack Fox in the poignant two-hander, after a successful UK tour.

Adapted for the stage by Michael Simkins, the play is based on the award-winning 2012 surprise best-seller,’Dear Lupin, Letters To A Wayward Son’ by the late racing journalist Roger Mortimer and the humorous father and son letters that spanned 25 years.

Members of Britain’s most famous acting dynasty, two-time BAFTA winner James plays Mortimer (and a host of walk-on characters, including an ageing Soho prostitute) with  his youngest son Jack as the rebellious offspring Charlie-“a youthful delinquent who grows into a mature delinquent…much loved by his dad.” In her four-star review for the Evening Standard, Fiona Montford wrote, “The real-life affection between James and Jack Fox perfectly suits this charming tale of parental love.”

I managed to catch James and Jack, together at the Apollo stage door after their first Saturday matinee. They both signed this sketch, adding simple dedications, with the senior Fox resisting his character’s quest to write me a letter regarding my wayward vices of drawing theatre sketches and sig-stalking.

Drawing: Jane Asher and Katie Scarfe in The Gathered Leaves

Posted on by
Reply

jane asher katie scarfe

The world premiere of Andrew Keatley’s second play, The Gathered Leaves at North London’s Park Theatre features a top-notch cast of 11 that includes two generations of two theatrical families. The story revolves around the first reunion in 17 years of a divided upper-class family gathering for the 75th birthday of its monstrous patriarch William Pennington. His long-suffering wife and mutinous daughter are played by Jane Asher and her daughter Katie Scarfe. Alexander and Tom Hanson play William’s younger son and grandson. In his four-star review for The Guardian, Michael Billington said that the real-life parent and child combination  “leads to an instant plausibility to the family relationships.”

I left this portrait montage of Jane and Katie, based on rehearsal images for the production, at the theatre. Both signed it for me, with Jane also enclosing a nice complimentary note. The Gathered Leaves runs until 15 August, but given the positive critical response, many expect it to transfer to the West End.

Drawing: Natalie Drew and Jamie Campbell Bower in Bend It Like Beckham

Posted on by
Reply

natalie drew jamie bc

The new musical adaption of the cult 2002 film  Bend It Like Beckham opened in the West End in May with Gurinder Chadhas reprising her directorial and writing duties for the stage production at London’s Phoenix Theatre. Jess (Natalie Drew). the eighteen-year-old, Beckham-worhipping daughter of a Sikh family, living in the suburbs of West London faces a culture clash. The second generation Punjabi Sikh defies her conservative parents to sneak off and play football (that’s soccer to some) for the Hounslow Harriers and soon falls for the dashing young coach Joe (Jamie Campbell Bower), creating a love triangle with her friend and tam captain Jules (Lauren Samuels). “Irresistible”, is how The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish described the show in his five-star review, reflecting similar sentiments from most of the main-stream UK critics.

It took me a couple of attempts to get this sketch signed, because I just missed Jamie a week ago, but got Natalie, who was surprised but very happy to graph it. I went back after last Saturday’s matinee to catch Jamie. As you can imagine, the Hollywood star, making his West End debut was ultra-popular and since I’m still a Knight from the age of chivalry (and the only male waiting), my MO was ladies first.  And again, as you can imagine, It was a wait, but worth it. He was uber-cool, excellent with all the gathered groupies …and me. He loved the drawing and probably grateful I don’t do selfies, just a siggy was suffice.

Drawing: The King’s Speech

Posted on by
Reply

The Kings Speech

Before it reached the big screen, The King’s Speech was a play. At its heart is the relationship between the stuttering King George VI and the Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue’s treatment to correct the English Royal’s debilitating impediment.

As a child, writer David Seidler developed a stammer caused by the emotional trauma of World War II, including the murder of his grandparents during the Holocaust. King George VI’s success overcoming his stammer inspired him . He began researching the story in the 1970s and 80s but abandoned it after the Queen Mother asked him not to pursue the project during her lifetime. After she died in 2002, he returned to it. David discovered his own uncle was also a stutterer, who had been sent to see Lionel Logue by David’s grandfather. At a reading of the play in London’s small Pleasance Theatre in 20015 to a group of Australian expats, Tom Hooper’s mother was present and contacted her son with his “next project”.

Tom asked David to develop the screenplay. It went on to win the BAFTA and the Best Picture Oscar, however the play was left unproduced until 2012.

It made its West End premiere at Wyndhams Theatre in March after a UK tour and strong reviews. It featured Charles Edwards as the King, Jonathan Hyde as Lionel, Emma Fielding (Queen Elizabeth), Joss Ackland (George V) and Ian McNeice (Winston Churchill).

They all signed this sketch on the 12 May 2012 after the final performance.

Drawing: Grace Savage in Blind

Posted on by
Reply

Grace Savage

Grace Savage is such a great oxymoron for a name, but quite apt for the twice British Beatboxing Champion.

Softly spoken, she has cultivated an extraordinary ‘vocal gymnastic’ talent that makes her far more feisty than she may first appear. As one scribe put it “Grace grows into the beatboxing savage”.

WhatsOnStage called her performance an “incredible blizzard of noise and rhythm… made the hairs on my neck stand on end”.

Grace appeared as Jade in Home at the National Theatre in 2013 and returned to the stage with her solo show Blind, which has just completed a two week residency upstairs at the Soho Theatre in London. On her website testimonials page Will Smith wrote, “Your beatboxing is incredible. You sound like an MP3”. As a child she would mimic sounds – everything from ambulance sirens to the hiss of the kettle.

Blind was created with the Leeds based theatre company The Paper Birds and is based on Grace’s auditory influences growing up in Devon. Receiving rave reviews at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, Grace visits, beat by beat, her teenage days – a mash up of pulsating bass, playground gossip beatbox battles, drunken brawls and news broadcasts charting her rise to becoming the country’s champion beatboxer.

Metro called her “staggering”, The Guardian said “Savage is mesmerising”.

I met Grace after her final performance at the Soho last Saturday night where she graphed this sketch.

Drawing: Robert Sean Leonard in To Kill a Mockingbird

Posted on by
Reply

robert sean leonard

One of my favourite films is Peter Weir’s Dead Poet’s Society, in which Robert Sean Leonard features as the tortured Neil Perry who discovers his love of theatre and gets the lead in a local production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “If I had my way, I would just do theatre, if it paid better,” Robert said in an interview prior to taking on the iconic role of Maycomb County lawyer Atticus Finch in Christopher Sergel’s  stage adaption of Lee Harper’s seminal novel,To Kill A Mockingbird in the Open Air Theatre’s production in London’s Regent Theatre two years ago. He reprised the role when the production moved indoors to the Barbican for a month run, which finished last weekend. Initially he didn’t think it would work as a play, in fact he didn’t know the stage version existed. “The book and the film are so good, why do a play?” he said. Plus there was the ‘shadow’ of Gregory Peck’s Oscar-winning portrayal in the 1962 film and taking on the role scared him. But he admitted he was wrong and told TimeOut it was “one my favourite things I have ever done.” It was favourite with the critics as well. BritishTheatre.com said,”perfection,complete with slightly crumpled lined three piece suite…it’s a magical performance that makes every other cast member’s job that much easier.” A three-time Tony Award nominee, Robert won in 2001 for his role as A.E.Houseman in Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love. While this is testament to his theatre prowess and love for the stage over the screen, he was also part of the very successful TV series House,M.D for eight seasons, playing Hugh Laurie’s stoic sidekick Dr James Wilson.

Robert kindly signed my sketch for me on the last performance day at the Barbican.

Drawing: Butley at The Duchess Theatre

Posted on by
6

Butley

A summer’s day in London, and what better way to spend it than taking in a matinee of a West End play. Some may say there are better things to do on a summer’s day, but this is London and it was raining, (we had summer the weekend before). I chose the late Simon Grey’s dark comedy Butley at the Duchess. University lecturer, T.S.Eliot scholar and perpetual drunk Ben Butley is having a monumentally bad day, so bad, he’s making sure everyone else has a worse one. His trusty arsenal of mischievous irony and gleeful troublemaking prove to be the weapons of his own self-destruction. In the title role was the charismatic Dominic West, ably supported by a superb cast, Paul McGann, Amanda Drew, Martin Hutson, Penny Downie, Emma Huddleston and Cai Brigden. Last year I posted a couple of sketches  Dominic and Paul signed, but this black biro drawing included all seven cast members. It is,however, difficult to get stuff signed while inside the theatre watching the play, although I always think the best time to get everyone would be during the curtain call. Alas,not a plan shared by theatre management. Multiple cast can prove logistically difficult for obvious reasons, none more so than when they all leave at the same time it’s like trying to collect marbles rolling on a glass floor. The Duchess Theatre does have one thing going for the autograph aficionado, there’s only one entry and exit point, (as far as I know) to the left of the main doors and almost under cover, albeit under a leaking veranda. I had drawn this sketch earlier based on the promotional material adorning the theatre and managed to get it signed by all, either going in or coming out in  sig-friendly file. Even the late afternoon sun decided to shine on this successful summer’s saturday..momentarily.

 

Drawing: Samantha Barks as Eponine in Les Miserables

Posted on by
Reply

Samantha Barks
“I love Eponine-she’s one of the best roles in Les Miserables,” said Samantha Barks. She should know, it’s the heartbreaking and tragic role that propelled the Isle of Man actress into the international spotlight. She played Eponine on the West End stage, at the Queen’s Theatre from 21 June 2010 until 18 June the following year. The show’s impresario producer Sir Cameron Mackintosh chose her for the 25th Anniversary show at the O2 in 2010 and it was he who announced her role in the Tom Hooper helmed film version. Sam had just finished performing Nancy in Oliver at Manchester’s palace Theatre when he joined her on stage for the curtain call and told her she had the part. “It was the biggest surprise of my life,” she recalled, “I was completely speechless.” When asked in an interview for Movieline how many times she had sung Eponine’s signature song ‘On My Own’, Sam said, “That’s hard-I’m rubbish at math,” before listing her history with the tune. The writer’s  quick calculation came to 400+, but that didn’t include all the times as a child singing it into a hairbrush in front of a mirror, wanting to be Eponine.

Although I have meet Sam on numerous occasions in London at theatre venues, film premieres and award ceremonies, I actually sent this  sketch to her while she was in Oliver in Manchester, probably just after Sir Cameron gave her the good news-a good time to catch her me thinks!