Category Archives: Theatre

Drawing: Michael McIntyre

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Michael McIntyre

Michael McIntyre has become the highest-earning comedian in the world today since his rapid rise from obscurity to prominence after appearing on his first Royal Variety Performance in 2006. Micheal’s 2012 UK Tour covered 71 arena venues performing to over 700,000 people including a record-breaking 10 nights at London’s 02 which elevated him to the world’s biggest selling standup comedian, grossing an estimated £21 million.

Before all the fame and fortune he remembers the tough years spent on the circuit and returns to his roots, with ‘work in progress’ shows to try out new material. He often appears at smaller venues like the Soho Theatre, a place I myself frequent as frequent readers of my blog will testify. Michael’s back there this month for a few practice gigs. However he slips in and out unnoticed and nobody seems to have any info on his movements.

The staff are always helpful, but the bigger names tend to prefer a bit more obscurity at the intimate venue for obvious reasons. I did hang around a couple of times to see if I could catch Michael in person, but that proved fruitless, so left this sketch with the Soho team. For some reason I thought, given Michael’s status, his entourage may forget to pass it on or it would get lost amongst the mountain of fan mail. I expected a long wait for it’s return, if in fact it was ever returned at all or the usual 5×7 pre-printed photo with the standard letter.

But to my surprise and delight, it came back signed, complete with additional comic calligraphy within two days!

Drawing: Billy Connolly in the High Horse Tour, Hammersmith Apollo, London

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Billy Connolly

In 2012 Billy Connolly was diagnosed with prostate cancer, deafness and Parkinson’s disease in the same week. Successful surgery cured the cancer and he now wears a small hearing aid, but the slow moving Parkinson’s will always be with him. ‘It’s like having a wee mugger following you around,” he said in a recent interview. But the Scotsman, considered by many polls to be the greatest standup ever, refuses to let his battle with the debilitating disease stop him as he embarked on his latest HIGH HORSE Tour, which saw him just finish an 11-night run at London’s Hammersmith Apollo. Protracted applause  greeted him every night  and he responded with, “You’re only doing that coz I’m sick…I can tell the f ***in’ sympathy vote.” The Guardian’s review headline read. ‘Older, frailer but the Big Yin is still the Maestro.”

“When I was a boy I was a Catholic. I paid the fine and got out.” He once said, but he thanked theChurch in his acceptance speech at the National Television Awards last month when he received a special award for his 50 years in the business. “I’d like to thank the Catholic Church for the rhythm method of birth control without which I wouldn’t be here.”
Hopefully it’s not the last time we see him live on stage in London. His health condition may have stopped him playing his beloved banjo, but hasn’t diminished his generosity with fans and ability to sign, which he kindly did so on my sketch after I left it for him at the venue.

Drawing: Eva Noblezanda

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Eva Noblezada

Seventeen year-old unknown North Carolina high school student Eva Noblezanda was plucked from obscurity to play the lead in the West End revival of the musical MISS SAIGON and winning the WhatsOnStage Award for Best Actress in a Musical.
“She’s performed in shows at her school, but she has never done a big professional musical before,” said producer Cameron MacIntosh when he announced Eva would be playing Kim for the much-anticipated run at London’s Prince Edward Theatre, which opened in May 2014. It smashed the world box-office record, taking £4.4 million on the first day of ticket sales.

Apart from her obvious talent, the role is in the blood with Eva’s aunty, Annette Calud also playing Kim in the Broadway production.

MISS SAIGON premiered at the Drury Lane’s Theatre Royal in 1989, running for ten years before transferring to Broadway. Written by LES MISERABLES’ Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boubill, it is loosely based on Puccini’s MADAME BUTTERFLY. Set in 1975, during the final days of the American occupation of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), it tells the tragic tale of a doomed romance between an American G.I. And a Vietnamese bargirl.

The revival finishes at the end of this month and Eva will be reprising the role in the Broadway transfer in the Spring of 2017.

Drawing: Julian Clary as The Slave of the Ring in Aladdin

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Julian Clary

British comedian and writer Julian Clary spent the festive period playing the ‘Slave of the Ring’ in ALADDIN at the Birmingham Hippodrome, before he embarks on his latest UK tour THE JOY OF MINCING.

Julian’s career began as ‘Leo Hull’, a fake keyboardist for a band called “Thinkman’, before taking to the alternative comedy scene as Gillian Pieface and ‘The Joan Collins Fan Club’ with his pet ‘Fanny the Wonder Dog.’ Joan Collins issued a cease and desist order to prevent Julian using her name, but they starred together in the 2010/11 panto DICK WHITTINGHTON at the Birmingham Hippodrome and have since become good friends.

Julian said he feels very comfortable in the world of pantomime, “I like dressing up and wearing lots of make-up”.  He also said he likes forgetting his lines, “It’s good when things go wrong, then I can improvise my way out of the situation.”

I sent this sketch to Julian during the run, which he signed and returned.

Drawing: Susannah Fielding in Bull at the Young Vic

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Susannah Fielding - Bull

The “consistently brilliant” Susannah Fielding was joined by Nigel Lindsay, Max Bennett and Marc Wootton in Clare Lizzimore’s “stunningly nasty production” (TimeOut) of Mike Barlett’s BULL when it was restaged at London’s Young Vic’s intimate Maria space over the Christmas season. She played the icy, sleek alpha female Isobel, who uses her manipulative skills to survive corporate downsizing when three warring work colleagues fight for the two remaining positions in what critic Sophia Chetin-Leuner called “The performative splendour of being cruel.”

Winner of the 2014 Charleson Award for her memorable portrayal as Portia in Rupert Goold’s THE MERCHANT OF VENICE at the Almeida Theatre, Susannah’s star continued to shine. “The spoils go to Susannah Fielding, who gets to deliver the powerhouse speech that brings the play to its climax,” wrote Thomas Dearnley-Davison in Spindle Magazine.
Susannah signed this sketch of her in the role after surviving another session in the ‘bullring’ on the final Saturday.

Drawing: Nigel Lindsay in Bull at the Young Vic

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Nigel Lindsay Bull

‘The Grim Reaper’, was Nigel Lindsay’s reply when asked how he would describe, in three words, his character Carter in his latest stage sojourn.

‘Life can be nasty, brutish and short. So is this play.’

This is one critic’s summation of Mike Bartlett’s 55 minute, Olivier Award-winning  BULL, which was recast and returned to the Young Vic’s Maria space over the festive period (the ‘grinch’ option to all that joyish stuff).  It’s described as a vicious comedy in an allegorical death match between business colleagues. Nigel plays the brutal boss who has to ‘interview’ three people ( Max Bennett, Susannah Fielding and Marc Wootton) for two roles in a workplace-come-bullring. Nigel was a stockbroker in a pre-actor life, so he was familiar with a number of the play’s concepts. He was actually involved in an early reading of the play, but was unable to be participate in the initial runs at the Sheffield Crucible, off-Broadway and the Young Vic in 2014/15.

In an interview he was asked what asked what supernatural power he would choose, Nigel said invisibility, which would make drawing him a little easier. He also added “I could sit naked in a Cabinet meeting and no one would ever know” ….except maybe all the other invisible naked people. So this is a fully-visible, fully-clothed rendering of Nigel as Carter that he signed on his way to the BULL fight for the final matinee a couple of weeks ago.

Drawing: The Mousetrap

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The Mousetrap

It’s the longest running play in the world. Agatha Christie’s classic ‘whodunnit’ THE MOUSETRAP is into it’s 64th year, opening on London’s West End in 1952. It has run continuously since it’s 25 November opening. Starting at The Ambassadors Theatre, it  moved next door to the larger St Martin’s in March 1974, without skipping a performance, which numbered 25,000 on 18 November 2012.

For some of those years I have been meaning to do a sketch to pay homage to it’s endurance and longevity. In fact my rendering urges began as far back as the early 1990’s. The  murder mystery’s cast has changed regularly since the original production, which included Sir Richard Attenborough. It was only a matter of finding out the cast members, which number 8 and do the deed. Over time I have made half-hearted attempts, but last December I was determined to complete the task.

I found out the cast and collected production snaps from various sources, including the theatre stills and drew my MOUSETRAP montage. Playing the parts of Molly and Giles Ralston, Christopher Wren, Mrs Boyle, Major Metcalf, Miss Casewell, Mr Paravicini and Detective Sergeant Trotter were, in no particular order, Claire Cartwright, Eleanor Cox, Henry Devas, Timothy Knightly, Phillip Langthorne. Audrey Palmer, Robert Rees and Ian Targett. I duly drew the aforementioned  and wrote a covering letter, explaining my elongated mission. Just before I was about to complete the sketch I checked to make sure the cast were still appearing. They were not! They finished their run the day before. Curses. The nearly completed sketch is attached below as evidence.

The incoming cast for the 2016 season were already on the boards. Eddie Eyre, Emma Deegan, Rob Heanley, Philip Cox, Eunice Roberts, Jocasta King, Timothy O’Hara and Laurence Kennedy quickly found their characters scribbled in 4B across a clean A4 sheet and delivered to them in a not-so-plain brown envelope. They all signed it. Mission accomplished.

The Mousetrap 2

Drawing: Julie Christie in Old Times

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Julie Christie

Thirty-three years after her first film, British actress Julie Christie made her West End debut at the age of 54, as Kate in a revival of Harold Pinter’s OLD TIMES in the summer of 1995.

Described as a ‘pop icon’ of swinging London during the 1960’s, Life Magazine hailed 1965 as ‘The Year of Julie Christie’ when she won the Best Actress Oscar and BAFTA for her role as amoral model Diana Scott in John Schlesinger’s DARLIING. It was also the year of her most famous role, Lara Antipova in David Lean’s international hit DR ZHIVAGO.

Fellow West End debutant Harriet Walter and Leigh Lawson completed the OLD TIMES cast which ran at the Wyndham’s Theatre for two months after transferring from the Theatre Clwyd in Wales.

“The actress’s warm, seductive presence is ideally suited to Kate. First glimpsed sprawled on a sofa, face beaming with almost unnerving serenity. Christie has a sphinx like allure, crucial to the evening,” wrote Matt Wolf in Variety.

There was no dramas getting Julie to sign my portrait of her as Kate. I simply popped it in the post and she returned it.

Drawing: Simon Lipkin, Laura Cubitt and Ben Thompson in The Lorax

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The Lorax

“I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.”

The Lorax is Dr Suess’ moustachioed and cantankerous critter (and the author’s personal favourite), whose mission is to protect the planet from the greedy, Tuffula tree-chopping, thneed-knitting businessman, the Once-Ler. THE LORAX was also a festive production directed by Max Webster at The Old Vic, which competed its successful season last weekend. Adapted by David Greig, who also did CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, currently running at Drury Lane, it’s a fable about environmental change and the damage humans can do to it. As a Christmas show it was full of the joys, but with a serious message, blending theatrical innovation, puppetry, a bunch of brand new songs and zany humour.

The Guardian’s Michael Billington called the production, “the best family show since MATILDA”.

“Stunningly brought to the stage,” as one critic wrote, as a puppet, simultaneously manipulated by three actors – Simon Lipkin, Laura Cubitt and Ben Thompson, who I missed out in my sketch, because he’s usually working closer to the floor and out of shot.  No stranger to puppet theatre, Simon, an original cast member of the London production of AVENUE Q, provided the voice for the Lorax. Together with Ben and Laura, another with a penchant for puppets, including WAR HORSE for The National, they brought the title character to life.

I left the drawing at the theatre, because on the night I was waiting at the stage door,  constant rain was dampening my enthusiasm and the artwork. It came back signed, including Ben with a kind note from Simon, explaining the additional siggy.

The Lorax Note

Drawing: Four Austentatious Women

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Austentatious

“One of the most enjoyable 60 minutes on the fringe” is how The Guardian summarises AUSTENTATIOUS – AN IMPROVISED JANE AUSTEN NOVEL, an improvised comedy play, based on nothing more than a title from the audience. It’s ‘eloquent, irreverent and a 100% improvised take on the works of Britain’s best-loved novelists.’ Some titles from previous shows include ‘Mansfield Shark’, ‘Jurassic Mansfield Park’, Sixth Sense and Sensibility’, Darcy & Hutch’ and ‘I know What You Did Last Season.’

For one night only, January 9 to be precise, the seven dashing dames and buxom boys of AUSTENTATIOUS swapped bonnets and breeches and took to the boards of the Leicester Square Theatre in London to perform CROSSTENTATIOUS to raise money for the Pancreatic Cancer Fund.

The four damsels, Amy Cooke-Hodgson, Cariad Lloyd, Charlotte Gittens and Rachel Parris signed this sketch of them in their regular Regency attire. I had no room on the A4 sheet to fit Graham Dickson, Joseph Morpurgo and Andrew Hunter Murray who complete the troupe, but they will all be back in their London ‘home’ at the end of the month and the next month and the following month… in fact they are many happy returners, so I can collect the gentleman’s graphs and catch another show.