Category Archives: Theatre

Sketch: Amy Lennox, 9 to 5 The Musical

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amy lennox

Scottish actress Amy Lennox shot to fame in 2007 when she played Liesel, the eldest daughter of the von Trapp family in the West End production of The Sound of Music at the London Palladium.

In 2010 she appeared in Legally Blonde The Muscial at the Savoy Theatre as Margot opposite Sheridan Smith as Elle Woods. While Sheridan was ill for a month, Amy took over the lead role.

In 2013 Amy toured the UK with the musical 9 to 5. She “had a big bra to fill” playing the feisty southern secretary Doralee Roberts, the part made famous by Dolly Parton in the award-winning stage version of the 1980 film which also starred Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin.

She’s always asked “Am I doing an impersonation of her (Dolly), but I am Doralee Roberts, not Dolly Parton, although it has a massive essence of her in it. Visually, the iconic things are there – the hair, make-up, lovely warm personality and boobs.” Amy told Scotland’s Daily Record. For the record, for the fake ‘famous chest’ she’s corseted with a WonderBra sewn into a Double D bra with chicken fillets with a bit of shading.

Amy signed this sketch of her as Doralee when I left it at the New Wimbledon Theatre where she played the title role in festive panto Cinderella last Christmas.

Sketch: Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Playhouse Theatre

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Women on the Verge

The brilliant Tamsin Greig and Haydn Gwynne have both been nominated for this year’s Olivier Awards for their respective roles in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

Previous Olivier winner (for Much Ado About Nothing) in 2007, Tamsin has been nominated for Best Actress in a Musical for her musical debut as Pepa, the lead role in the hilarious adaption of Pedro Almodovar’s Oscar nominated 1988 cult film which, following the Tony nominated production on Broadway, took to the Playhouse Theatre in London’s West End late last year. For her performance as the bitter ex-wife Lucia, Haydn received her second Olivier nomination after her previous nod for her role as Mrs Wilkinson in Billy Elliot. She reprised the role on Broadway, earning a Tony Award nomination.

The Guardian’s Michael Billington’s review included: “there is strong support from Anna Skellern, who seductively suggest hat Candela’s (her character) sexual abandon is more a product of untidiness than promiscuity and from Seline Hizli as a putative bride induced to orgasm by the valium laced gazpacho.”

I sent this sketch of the four to Haydn who not only signed it, but got the other three to do the same. Originally booked for a limited season, the production has now extended for three months until 22 August 2015.

Sketch: A View From The Bridge, Wyndham’s Theatre

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A View From The Bridge

The Young Vic’s radical production of Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge, directed by the visionary Belgian Ivo van Hove, transferred to the Wyndham’s Theatre in the West End last month. Mark Strong plays the central character Eddie Carbone, the honourable Brooklyn longshoreman with dishonourable love for his niece Catherine, played by Phoebe Fox. Both performances have been deservedly recognised with 2015 Olivier nominations, along with the director.

The cast perform in bare feet on an intensely lit space, that is stripped back with no set at all except a black box container that sits over it and defines the stage. It sold out even before it opened at the Young Vic and was the most anticipated transfer in the West End.

The Daily Telegraph, Evening Standard, The Independent, Mail on Sunday, Time Out and The Times all gave the production five stars, describing it as “unmissable”, “unforgettable”, “magnetic”, “electrifying” and “astonishingly bold”. Time Out said, “To say that A View from The Bridge is the best show in the West End at the moment is like saying Stone Henge is the current best rock arrangement in Wiltshire.”

Mark, Phoebe and Nancy Walker, who plays Eddie’s wife, all signed a previous sketch I did at the Young Vic. This montage of Mark and Phoebe was signed by both of them last week at the Wyndham’s stage door, where I congratulated them for their Olivier noms.

The play’s limited 8 week engagement runs until 11 April.

Sketch: Kill Me Now, Park Theatre

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Kill Me Now

Greg Wise returned to the stage for the first time in 17 years in the UK premiere of Brad Fraser’s dark father-son story Kill Me Now, in the Park Theatre’s intimate Park 200 auditorium in Finsbury Park, London.

It’s advertised as a dark comedy, but it’s more like a tragedy about the intimate and unsentimental portrait of a family confronting disability, punctuated with glimpses of wit and humour.

Greg plays Jake, a widower who has abandoned a promising career as a writer to look after his disabled son, Joey. It’s a physically demanding role which he plays with, “noble sensitivity… his interactions with his son are often agonising,” said The Evening Standard’s Henry Hutchings in his four star review.

The comparatively unknown Oliver Gomm (Joey) is a revelation, with Hutchings comparing him to Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot and recent Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything. He described Charlotte Harwood’s performance as Jake’s tough, but vulnerable sister as “robust”.

I sent this sketch to Greg, Oliver and Charlotte who all kindly signed it for me. Kill Me Now finishes this Sunday, 29 March 2015.

Sketch: Penelope Wilton in Taken At Midnight, Theatre Royal Haymarket

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penelope wilton

Returning to the West End after a five year absence, Downton Abbey star Penelope Wilton reprised her role as Irmgard Litten in Taken at Midnight when it transferred to the Theatre Royal Haymarket from a sold out season in Chichester last month.

Putting maternal love on centre stage, Mark Hayhurst’s 2014 play is based on the life of the young German Jewish lawyer Hans Litten who’s brilliant cross examination of Adolf Hitler in the trial of a band of murderous SA men in 1931 led to his arrest by the Nazis in 1933.

The play explores Irmgard’s five year struggle to secure her son’s release. The Guardian said, “Gripping, Penelope Wilton shines in Mark Hayhurst’s deeply engrossing drama about the high price of resisting tyranny.”

Penelope has been nominated for six Olivier Awards, including this year’s shortlist for her “profoundly moving performance” (The Sunday Times) as Litten’s mother.

Sketch: Ron Cook in The Ruling Class at Trafalgar Studios

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Ron Cook

The versatile English actor Ron Cook has been a stalwart of theatre, film and television since the 1970’s. He may not be a household name but will be instantly recognisable to global audiences in all three mediums. Ron has appeared in  most of the popular British TV shows, including DOCTOR WHO, BERGERAC, MIDSOMMER MURDERS, THE SINGING DETECTIVE and can be currently seen as Mr Crabb the accountant in the ITV series MR SELFRIDGE. He has actually played Napoleon Bonaparte twice, in a guest appearance in SHARPE and in the feature film QUILLS – one of Ron’s 54 movies, which also includes THE COOK (appropriately), THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER, SECRETS & LIES and TOPSY-TURVY. A highlight of Ron’s extensive theatre work was an Olivier Award Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role in JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK at the Donmar Warehouse. He can now be seen on the London stage as Sir Charles Gurney in the first revival of Peter Barnes’s social satire THE RULING CLASS at the Trafalgar Studios, where he signed this sketch.

Sketch: Ruby Wax, Sane New World

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Ruby Wax

American born, naturalised British comedian Ruby Wax recently graduated from Oxford University with a Master’s Degree in Mindfulness based Cognitive Therapy. In 2013, her book Sane New World became a number one best seller which she has now turned into a stage show.

On her website, Ruby says she had a gift for canoeing, but was forced to drop it because there was no future in it, so she classically trained at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1978 followed by 25 years on BBC and Channel Four. Ruby was nominated for a BAFTA Award in 1996 for her interview with Sarah Duchess of York, and interview that attracted over 14 million viewers.

Sane New World helps us understand why we sabotage our own sanity and provides a manual on how to survive the 21st Century.

It has just completed a sold out run at the St James Theatre in London where she signed my sketch, before taking the show down under during April and returning to the UK for a national tour.

Sketch: John Light in Taken at Midnight at Theatre Royal Haymarket

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John Light

British actor John Light has been nominated for a Supporting Actor Olivier Award for his role as a Gestapo officer. Jonathan Church’s world premiere production of Taken at Midnight, the new play by documentary film maker Mark Hayhurst, was first staged as part of the Chichester Festival Theatre’s Hidden Histories Season.

It’s the extraordinary story of a young Jewish lawyer Hans Litten who subpoenaed Hitler to appear as a witness in a criminal trial in 1931. he was taken into “protective custody” and sent to Sonnenburg Concentration Camp. The play focusses on the attempts of Litten’s mother (Penelope Wilton) to confront the Gestapo and rescue her son from his inevitable fate.

After it’s success in Chichester, the production transferred to the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in London’s West End for a limited run which ended last weekend.

The New York Times correspondent Matt Wolf said “Mr Light is suavely chilling in the part” of Dr Conrad, the Nazi official who plays down the severity of Litten’s fate even though he knows the atrocities that await. Hans Litten died in Dachau in 1938, at the age of 34.

Sketch: Shazia Mirza

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Shazia Mirza

International award-winning British-Asian, Muslim, comedian, actor and writer Shazia Mirza used to be a secondary school science teacher (she taught rapper Dizzee Rascal) before taking on a career in stand up. She gained notoriety in the months after the September 11 2001 attacks and the resulting Islamophobia, beginning her shows with the deadpan remark, “my name is Shazia Mirza – at least that’s what it says on my pilot’s license”.

In April 2007 she presented a documentary on BBC3 entitled, “F*** Off, I’m a Hairy Woman.” The Observer listed her as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. She has been a regular columnist for The Guardian since 2004 and began writing fortnightly columns in the New Statesman, winning Columnist of the Year 2008 at the prestigious PPA Awards, to go with her numerous comedy awards.

In his list of the 50 best jokes of the noughties, The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish included two of Shazia’s quotes: “Men who blow themselves up are promised 72 virgins in paradise. That’s a high price to pay for a shag. In real life you’d be hard pushed to find one virgin. It begs the question – what on earth do they all look like? That’s a lot of hairy women”

and

“The only way Heather Mills can redeem herself now is to find Madeleine McCann.”

According to her website, “she hopes one day to have a cleaner and a jacuzzi.”

Shazia signed my sketch at the WOW – Women of the World Festival at the Royal Festival Hall in London earlier this month.

Sketch: Caitlin Moran

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Caitlin Moran

English broadcaster and writer Caitlin Moran is the bestselling author of How To Be A Woman. She’s an award winning columnist and critic for The Times in London and was named the Observer’s Young Reporter of the Year aged 15.

Caitlin’s upbringing in Wolverhampton inspired her TV drama comedy series Raised By Wolves, which she wrote with her sister Caroline. The main character is Germaine – a “gobby, vaginally-focussed, horny, 16 year old extrovert”.

I met Caitlin at the stage door (or as they call it, The Artist’s Entrance) of the Royal Festival Hall last week when she joined Bridget Christie and Shazia Mirza as the “Three titans of comedy and thinking” for the WOW – Women of the World Festival and she signed my sketch.