Category Archives: Theatre

Drawing: Billie Piper in Great Britain

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billie piper

Billie Piper’s performance as Paige Britain, the ambitious tabloid news editor,  garnered unanimous praise when the National Theatre staged Richard Bean’s GREAT BRITAIN last summer. Described by The Telegraph’s theatre critic Dominic Cavendish as “a sultry, stiletto-stamping schemer”, Billie’s character took the lead in a timely look at the tangled relationship between the press, politicians and the police. The play was in secret rehearsals for months and was only announced after the key verdicts in the phone-hacking trial were delivered. It premiered without a preview period on 30 June 2014 at the National’s Lyttelton Theatre. Paul Taylor called it a “farce with fangs” in The Independent, stating Billie’s performance as “excellent”-a description shared by all the major critics.

This sketch is a montage-a page on Paige-so to speak..I mean draw. Billie signed and returned it in the mail.

 

Drawing: Stephen Merchant in The Mentalists at Wyndham’s Theatre

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Stephen Merchant

Stephen Merchant embarked on his West End theatre debut last week in the revival of Richard Bean’s 2002 comedy THE MENTALISTS at Wyndham’s Theatre, saying it was a great chance to do some “proper acting”.

The BAFTA and Emmy Award-winning ‘lanky comic’, (as TimeOut described him) shares the stage with GAVIN AND STACEY’s Steffan Rhodri in a two-hander about a fanatical man called Ted (Stephen) armed with his trusty video camera and Morrie (Steffan), an off-duty hairdresser with wild fantasies , holed up in a Finsbury Park hotel, filming utopian messages that could go global.

Stephen is best-known for his collaborations with Ricky Gervais on THE OFFICE, EXTRAS, LIFE’S TOO SHORT and AN IDIOT ABROAD as well as their cult podcast series. When asked by TimeOut was he nervous about his theatrical debut, Stephen replied, ‘I’ll probably regret ever doing it within two days, because I’ll just be so tired. But my grandfather was a builder and my dad was a plumber, which is proper work, so I’m not going to fuss about two hours a night”.

Well, that philosophical approach got an early test. On the second night he sustained stage damage, emerging from the theatre holding an ice-pack, or some  anti-inflammatory pad…or maybe just a face-cloth…either way it was covering  a wound on the lower arm of his signing wing! Yikes. A theatre assistant muttered something about a burn. However it merely slowed things a little as Stephen graciously signed and posed for selfies for the sizeable crowd waiting. I felt a bit guilty asking him to add a dedication as well, but he was happy to oblige.

 

Drawing: Eleanor Worthington-Cox in Matilda the Musical

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Eleanor Worthington-Cox

Eleanor Worthington-Cox was one of the original four young actresses who rotated in the role of Matilda Wormwood in the hugely successful Matilda The Musical based on the children’s novel by Roald Dahl. After the twelve week run staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-Upon-Avon, it premiered on London’s West End on 24 November 2011 at the Cambridge Theatre.

In 2012 it won a record seven Olivier Awards, including Best Actress in a Musical with the ‘Four Matildas’ – Eleanor, Cleo Demetriou, Sophia Kiely and Kerry Ingram – winning a coveted trophy each. Eleanor is the youngest recipient of the award at the age of 10, and was the Matilda when my wife and I saw the show.

She is currently playing Blousey Brown in Bugsy Malone at the Lyric Hammersmith, where she signed this Matilda montage drawing. WIth such a long moniker her signature is rather compact and intricate.

Drawing: Jade Anouka in Chef

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Jade Anouka

Rising star of British Theatre Jade Anouka has just finished a three week run of her solo show Chef at London’s Soho Theatre.

Sabrina Mahfouz’s gripping 50 minute poetic monologue about one woman who went from being a haute-cuisine head-chef to a convicted inmate running a prison kitchen made its London debut after a sensational season at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, winning the 2014 Fringe First Award.

“The combination of Mahfouz’s lyrical yet bruising writing and Anouka’s phenomenal performance is a winning one,” wrote The Guardian’s Lyn Gardner. Other critics have been equally full of praise, using adjectives such as “stunning”, “wonderful” and “extraordinary”.

I met the delightful Jade after her final matinée performance at the Soho on Saturday afternoon and she signed my sketch.

Drawing: Laura Smithers in Clarion

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laura smithers

Laura Smithers was part of the accomplished ensemble lead by Clare Higgins and Greg Hicks in the world premiere of the dark comedy CLARION during its five-week run at the Arcola Theatre in East London earlier this year. Directed by Mehmet Ergen, it was former Fleet Street journo Mark Jagasia’s debut play about the current state of the British media, set in the offices of the UK’s worst newspaper, the ‘Daily Clarion’. A year after finishing her training at the Drama Studio of the Lyric Theatre in Belfast, Laura won the role in this production of Pritti Singh, who she describes as “dim, ignorant,no social skills, but determined to claw her way to the top”.

CLARION is scheduled to return to the Arcola for a repeat season later this year.

Drawing: Jo Burke in iScream at the Leicester Square Theatre

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jo burke

Comedian and writer Jo Burke is a popular regular on the UK stand-up and Cabaret circuit as herself or her alter-ego characters, ‘Mary Magdalene’ and ‘Pie Shop Pat’. She previewed her new show ‘i Scream’ for the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe Festival at London’s Leicester Square on Saturday evening. It’s a brutally honest account of her Edinburgh ‘mini-meltdown’ last year when she performed not one, but two shows. In spite of the exhausting stint both pieces received four-star reviews as has this one, so fingers crossed for a less stressful,  but equally successful Festival this time round. I really liked her ‘iScream’ poster and based my sketch on it, which is inspired by the CARRIE film because “I love dark humour and my shows are always dark”, she said.

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

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SImon Russell Beale

Simon Russell Beale is not only a great stage actor and an extremely pleasant chap to meet, he’s a brilliant subject to draw. Hence the frequency of my sketches of the man considered by many to be the best actor of his generation. This is in fact my second study of Simon as KING LEAR when he took to the vast Olivier stage at the National last Autumn in the exceptional Sam Mendes-directed production. This was the seventh Shakespearian collaboration for the actor-director combination. Jasper Kees commented in his article for The Telegraph that  when classical actors play HAMLET , a clock starts ticking down to his LEAR with a decent hiatus in between. He lists such notables as Ian McKellen, with a 36 year gap, 32 for Jonathan Pryce and 31 for Derek Jacobi. For 52 year-old Simon it was 14 years and if it wasn’t for Sam’s commitment to SKYFALL and CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY the gap would have been a lot less. however that hypothesis flies out the window when it was revealled that this is not Simon’s first LEAR. Oh no, he played the tragic monarch as a 17 year-old while still at Clifton College, so it’s a 35 year gap between LEARs for him, punctuated with a HAMLET.

That aside, I  caught up with Simon to sign my sketch at the Donmar Warehouse after a Saturday evenings performance of TEMPLE in which he  currently plays the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in Steve Water’s new play inspired by the London Occupy Movement and the events surrounding the hallowed venue in October 2011. As usual he was very gracious and happily signed this version of LEAR, remembering the zillions of others he had also graphed.

 

Drawing: Evelyn Hoskins in Carrie the Musical

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carrie the musical

Evelyn Hoskins took on the title role in the musical revival of Carrie, the role made famous by Sissy Spacek in the 1976 high school horror film at London’s Southwark Playhouse last month.

The Guardian’s Lyn Gardner wrote, “A mesmerising performance by Evelyn Hoskins as  the flame haired teenage avenger fires this revival of the RSC’s slaughterhouse Cinderella”

The show has a notorious history. Eager to repeat the success of Les Miserables, the Royal Shakespeare Company produced a stage adaption of Stephen King’s novel and the iconic movie version by Brian De Palma. It opened in Stratford and then transferred to Broadway, failing in both.

This was the first London revival, returned, reworked, revised, rewritten and “reborn in style” wrote Rebecca Hawks in The Telegraph. The story’s simple – a high school misfit with an abusive and religious mother, uses telekinesis to punish her tormentors.

Director and choreographer Gary Lloyd said “Southwark developed a song reputation for making things work that didn’t originally.” And by all accounts he got it right, with enthusiastic support from critics and theatre goers alike. “The result is bloody marvellous in every sense” wrote Mark Shenton in London Theatre.

Not only did Evelyn suffer bullying and harassment by her school peers, and being drenched in stage blood nightly – twice on matinee days – she was subjected to signing my sketch. What some actors have to do for their art… and mine!

Drawing: Diane Chorley: The Duchess of Canvey

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diane chorley

This is the first time one of my drawings has been kissed! Diane Chorley, the legendary Duchess of Canvey, former owner of the celeb-magnet 80s Essex nightclub The Flick and ex-con had just finished her final performance of a two week run at London’s Soho Theatre on Saturday night.

The place was humming – inside and out – as the streets and establishments throughout Soho were fuelled with revellers after the Pride March earlier in the day.

I stood by the ticket office door for strategic and safety reasons. When Diane, sipping on a lager, came out to take in the sights (one of which was my sketch) she gasped.

“Oh babe… wow! Did you do that? Wonderful,” she signed it and inscribed it and then baptised it with a kiss and beer. Now that’s lip service. A truly unique experience and addition for the collection. Dubbed the Duchess of Canvey by David Bowie, Diane describes her life on her website as:

“I was born in Canvey on the coldest day of the year. Mum said I was steaming when I came out. She was a good woman, hands like iron files, teeth like crackling. My father was a Hodd Carrier. Silent as bread, … never said a word. Turns out he was having an affair with a chiropodist from Billericay. Mum found out and killed him. Literally… Mum got life.”

Left to look after her younger brother, Diane resorted to some drug dealing for survival. She was eventually locked up and the nightclub shut down. Her show is a mixture of music accompanied by her equally famous  band The Buffet, and comic tales recounting her troubled days of infamy and fall from grace.

I read in Time Out that in order to handle being mobbed by insatiable fans, the Soho Theatre did look at the cost of a water cannon for crowd control. It was a toss up between that and a cold spread for The Buffet and they all agreed there was less chance of the venue getting sued over a crudité platter. I was pleased about that.

Drawing: Lily Cole in The Last Days of Troy

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lily cole

Former supermodel and actress Lily Cole, “excels while making her stage acting debut in Simon Armitage’s stylish The Last Days of Troy“, wrote Dominic Cavendish in The Telegraph.

Staged last summer at Shakespeare’s Globe, following a run at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre, it has been described by some as a a “highlights package” of Greek history.

The Last Day’s of Troy completes Homer’s Iliad with award winning poet and author Simon Armitages dramatisation, bringing the war to a brutal conclusion. It combined the essentials of Homer’s Iliad, bits from his Odyssey and elements from Virgil’s Aeneid.

Lily played Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world according to Greek myth. While technically not her stage debut, it was her first conventional production.  She previously appeared in the Old Vic’s annual 24 Hour Plays Celebrity Galas in which a group of high profile performers work with writers and directors to create a line up of new plays in just 24 hours.

“The former model, now a humanitarian campaigner is suitably enigmatic. Cole’s performance is deliberately restrained as she glides around the stage in an almost ghostly fashion… her gracious movement and distant stare are just what’s required,” wrote Henery Hitchings in the Evening Standard.

Some in the autograph game have found the same demeanour off stage, but I’ve always found Lily to be pleasant and accommodating on the few occasions I have met her. There’s a big difference between ‘racking’ her with 20 8x10s and asking her to sign a theatre sketch.