Drawing: Julie Walters

Posted on August 28, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Julie Walters is one of my favourite actresses. I am not alone. An Orange Film Survey rated her the Greatest of British Film Actresses in 2001 and ITV’s 2006 poll had her 4th in the 50 Greatest Stars in the UK. Julie debuted on the London stage in 1980 in Willy Russell’s EDUCATING RITA about a hairdresser’s literary quest. It was a role that bought her international prominence two years later in the film version with Michael Caine and her first of seven BAFTA Awards,a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination. Julie has also won two Emmys for A SHORT STAY IN SWITZERLAND (2009) and MO (2011) and an Olivier for her performance as Kate Keller in Arthur Miller’s ALL MY SONS in 2001 at the National Theatre in London. She is probably more familiar to younger audiences as Rupert Grint’s screen mother, Molly Weasley in 8 of the HARRY POTTER films. I was fortunate to see Julie in Peter Hall’s production of Tennessee William’s THE ROSE TATOO at London’s Playhouse theatre in the early 1990’s. I did this sketch and she signed it for me many years later at the British Film Institute,before participating in JULIE WALTERS IN CONVERSATION in February 2011 as part of a season dedicated to her career in Films and Television.

Drawing: Christie Brinkley in Chicago

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Christie Brinkley gained worldwide fame in the 1970’s and 80’s as a supermodel – the first to have three consecutive Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue covers. She has been married four times, most notably to musician Billy Joel. The ‘Uptown Girl’ appeared in a number of his music videos and illustrated the cover of his 1993 triple platinum album ‘River of Dreams.’ Rolling Stone awarded it the Best Album Cover of the Year. After a successful debut on Broadway as the femme fatale, foxy Roxie Hart in America’s longest running musical, Chicago, the 57 year-old razzle-dazzled West End audiences at the Cambridge Theatre in London during a four-week engagement… va-va-va-voooom! Christie signed my sketch in person at the stage door in August 2011.

Drawing: Mike Leigh

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Acclaimed British Theatre and Film director Mike Leigh begins his projects without a script, but a basic premise that is developed through improvisation by the actors who are fully liberated in the creative process. He works with them one-on-one to develop a character and after months of rehearsal he writes a brief shooting script, which is constantly refined during the production.

His vision is to depict ordinary life. Mike was influenced in the 1960s by films such as John Cassavete’s Shadows – an improvised cast of unknown observed ‘living, loving and bickering’ on the streets of New York and plays that included Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker. During the 70s and 80s he divided his time directing theatre and making TV films described as ‘kitchen sink realism’. He also wrote a number of plays, including Abigail’s Party.

He has been nominated for the Academy Award seven times and won the Best Director award at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival for Naked. In 1996 his film Secrets and Lies won the Palm d’or, the Best Film BAFTA and an Oscar nomination.

In 2010, at the 54th BFI London Film Festival, his film Another Year was featured. He received his latest Oscar nomination for writing the original screenplay. Mike signed my sketch for me at the screening.

Drawing: Alan Cumming in Macbeth

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Alan Cumming has just finished performing a radical re-imagining of Macbeth, single handedly! to sell out audiences on Broadway’s Ethel Barrymore Theatre (of Theater in the American vernacular).

He won the Olivier Award, playing the maniac in Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist in 1996 and the Tony Award for his role as the MC in the Broadway production of Cabaret seven years later. Alan has also been nominated for two Emmys and two Screen Actor’s Guild Awards.

In this National Theatre of Scotland production the 11th Century ‘Thane of Cawdor’s’ murderous ambition and corrosive guilt is cleverly transferred to a chilly chamber of a mental institution where a CCTV camera captures the patient’s every move as he is habited in turn by each of the characters from ‘the Scottish play’. In two hours with no intermission he performs “one power grab, and 16 major roles,” as one reviewer put it. “Cumming’s delivery swiftly shifts characters with stunning clarity.”

Alan signed my sketch yesterday at a preview screening of his latest film Any Day Now at Piccadilly Vue Apollo Cinema in London

Drawing: Miss Polly Rae

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Miss Polly Rae is one of the leading singers and dancers in the Neo-burlesque scene.

Fusing fashion, music and popular culture, her ‘Hurly Burly Show’ was the first major burlesque inspired musical spectacular to be staged in a West End Theatre, playing the Garrick in 2011.

Full of wit and joie de vivre, it transferred, it transferred for a 12 week limited season at the Duchess Theatre in 2012, where Miss Polly signed my sketch.

Drawing: Relatively Speaking at Wyndham’s Theatre

Posted on August 18, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The first London revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s classic comedy Relatively Speaking concludes its three month West End run at Wyndham’s Theatre this month.

The Theatre Royal Bath production, directed by Lindsay Posner stars Felicity Kendal, Jonathan Coy, Kara Tointon and Max Bennett.

Described by the Guardian as “two hours of continuous laughter,” this beautifully crafted and charmingly English play was Ayckbourn’s first great West End success, opening at the Duke of York’s in 1967. Its theme of middle class marital misery and the mistaken identity gag became his speciality.

Greg (Bennett) and Ginny (Tointon) only met a month ago, but he has made up his mind that she’s the one for him. She tells him that she’s off for a weekend at her parents. He finds a scribbled address and decides to surprise her and ask her father for his daughter’s hand.

Sheila (Kendal) and Philip (Coy) are enjoying a peaceful Sunday morning breakfast interrupted by the two visitors. The only thing – they’re not Ginny’s parents…

All four cast members are a delight, on and off the stage. They happily signed my sketch after Friday night’s performance.

Drawing: Chiwetel Ejiofor

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Many say Chiwetel Ejiofor is “one of the best British actors of his generation”.

He has been recognised by the British Academy and Hollywood’s Foreign Press with BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations. Word is he may ad an Oscar nod to that impressive collection.

He had to leave his studies at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts after one year for a role in Stephen Spielberg’s Amistad. Not a bad foundation to launch a career that includes Love Actually, American Gangster and Dirty Pretty Things. Rumour has it he even turned down the role of Dr Who, with Matt Smith becoming the 11th Time Lord in 2009.

He is currently headlining Joe Wright’s sold out production of Aimé Cesaire’s A Season in the Congo at London’s Young Vic. He plays Patrice Lumumba – “a beer salesman who became the first democratically elected Prime Minister of the Congo in June 1960. Seven days later the country gains independence from Belgian colonial rule. By January 1961. Lumumba was dead – executed in murky circumstances, involving Congolese dissenters and foreign powers. It’s a “decolonisation drama”chronicling a vibrant nation’s turbulent first years of freedom.

It marks Chiwetel’s return to the boards since he reprised his role as Othello (previously at the Bloomsbury Theatre in 1995) at the Donmar Warehouse with Ewan McGregor as Iago in 2007. Chiwetel won the Olivier Award for his performance.

His latest film 12 Years A Slave has attracted Oscar buzz. The historical drama, directed by Steve McQueen, is based on the autobiography of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was kidnapped in Washington DC in 1841 and sold into slavery for 12 years. Brad Pitt plays his part as well – producing and acting in the film.

Chiwetel signed my sketch at the Young Vic last Thursday before the evening performance.

Drawing: Lenny Henry in Fences

Posted on August 11, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Lenworth George Henry, known as Lenny, and better known as a comedian and co-founder of Comic Relief is now a ‘serious actor’.

Back in 2009 he dived in the classical deep end, taking on the titanic role of Othello as a Shakespearean novice to critical acclaim. He now takes on the massive lead role in the Pulitzer Prize winning drama, Fences in the West End.

Fences is the sixth in a series of ten plays by August Wilson on the Pittsburgh Cycle, that explore the African American experience in each decade of the twentieth century.

The story centres around 53 year Troy Moxson and his struggles with providing for his family and cheating death. He was a great baseball player in his youth but couldn’t make a living due to the colour barrier. Imprisoned for an accidental murder during a robbery, he now has a menial, but respectable job as a garbageman.

It previewed in March 1987 on Broadway at The 46th Street Theater and ran for 525 performances. James Earl Jones played Troy and won a Tony Award, along with Best Play, Best Direction and Best Actress (Mary Alice) nods. A revival in 2010 at The Cort Theatre featured Denzel Washington and Viola Davies in the lead roles. Both won Tony Awards for their performances and the productions won Best Revival of a play, after receiving an impressive 10 nominations.

In early 2013 Fences was revived by Theatre Royal Bath in the UK, starring Lenny in the lead role and directed by Paulette Randall, before transferring to the Duchess Theatre in London in June. Critical reception has focused on Lenny’s performance which has attracted wide acclaim. Paul Taylor from The Independent said, “the performance cements Henry’s status as a serious actor.”

Charles Spencer from The Telegraph said of Lenny, “He is, and I don’t use the word lightly, magnificent.”

Drawing: Windsor Davies

Posted on July 31, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

I’ve had the good fortune to meet Windsor Davies on two occasions, both in Invercargill, New Zealand.

In 1986 , he performed at the city’s Civic Theatre in Ray Cooney’s Run For Your Wife with Robin Askwith and Geoffrey Hughes. He returned in 1994 with the Cinderella production in 1994.

On both occasions the cast attended mayoral functions after the opening nights. I drew this quick sketch of Windsor as his character, Baron Hardup at the latter. He signed it, referencing our previous meeting, in typical Batter Sergeant Major Williams ‘speak’ from TV’s It Ain’t Half Hot Mum with one of his classic statements. You can imagine his deep, distinctive Welsh voice saying it.

Drawing: Sir Peter Ustinov

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

One of the people I had always wanted to to meet was Sir Peter Ustinov – actor, writer, noted wit and raconteur. In July 1990 I was privileged to see his one man show at the Civic Theatre in Invercargill, New Zealand and meet him afterwards.

In an interview, Sir Peter mentioned the Invercargill incident, “in a theatre that smelled of a furniture depository and made it very clear that it wasn’t very often used. Suddenly in the middle of my performance all the lights went out, including the exit signs.”

He continued performing in the dark, and got more laughs. He compensated for the lack of being seen by verbally expressing his actions in a more descriptive manner. After 20 minutes, the lights came back on, “I was dying for them to fail again,” Sir Peter said.

The interview was in 1992 – two years after the performance, when time allowed him to view the incident in a more positive way. But on the night his mood was colder than the Winter’s evening. At the time I was Deputy Mayor, and hosted a function for Sir Peter after his show. As you could imagine, he was not in a good frame of mind and his sense of humour had vanished. It took some coaxing by our City Manager, Richard King, to get him to the Mayoral Lounge, next to the Theatre.

Once there he was very charming. I asked him to sign my caricature. He looked at it for a while, then quipped, “yes, that’s me.”

My wife, Senga, had given birth to our son Ben the day before, so I asked him to add on “and wee Ben” to the inscription. He duly obliged, with ‘Ben’ in much smaller script. His sense of humour was restored, but no one mentioned the unscheduled black-out.