Drawing: Glenn Close in A Delicate Balance on Broadway

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Acclaimed for her versatility and widely regarded as one of the finest actresses of her generation, Glenn Close returned to the Broadway Stage after a twenty year hiatus in Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance at New York City’s John Golden Theatre.

Glenn’s last outing on the Great White Way won her third Tony for playing silent screen star Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. In spite of an extraordinary film and television career, theatre was where she began and remains her first love.

Glenn top lines a lustrous cast with John Lithgow as the complacent heads of a family who lose their composure when faced to confront and undefined terror that has stricken their best friends. Her “meaty role” as Agnes is the “witty, self-described harridan”.

Apart from winning three Tonys, Glenn tied the record for being the actress with the most Oscar nominations never to have won. The six time nominee has, however, collected three Emmys (14 noms) two Golden Globes (14 noms) and a SAG award (8 noms). She has also been nominated three times for a Grammy and once for a BAFTA.

The limited 18 week season ends on 22 February 2015.

Sketch: Nicole Scherzinger in Cats at the London Palladium

Posted on February 14, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Nicole Prescovia Elikolani Valieute or Nicole Scherzinger for short, made her West End debut as Grizabella last December in the revival of the musical Cats at the London Pallidium. The former Pussycat Dolls lead singer received critical acclaim for her 12 week run which ended in early February.

A recording of her rendition of the aching ballad Memory (which is available online) premiered on BBC Radio 2 this week, where Andrew Lloyd Webber said it was, “the best recording of anything of my music ever done.” He also told listeners that they are taking the show to Broadway. “I just hope and pray that she will agree to do it there as I think she’d take America by storm.”

The extended West End run sees Kerry Ellis replace Nicole as the lonely, fading glamoupuss until 25 April 2015.

Drawing: Francesca Hayward, Ballerina

Posted on February 13, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Is Francesca Hayward the next great British ballerina? At the age of 22 she is a soloist at the Royal Ballet, and she is already fast-tracked into principal roles. Her repertory includes Manon, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Swan Lake, Giselle, Don Quixote and The Nutcracker.

Judith Mackrell in the Guardian said, “the self possession and technical command of her performances have fired enormous interest among critics, bloggers and fans and ignited hopes that she may become that elusive thing, the next great British ballerina.”

Francesca began dancing at the age of three and joined the Royal Ballet School seven years later, winning Young British Dancer of the Year in 2010, along with both Silver Prizes and the Audience Choice Award at the Genée International Ballet Competition that same year.

Sketch: Jerry Hall in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Posted on February 12, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

On of the world’s leading models for five decades with her trademark height and long blonde hair, Jerry Hall took on the role of the Wicked Queen in Richmond Theatre’s traditional festive pantomime Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs last year.

“I hope to get a good booing then I know I’ll be doing it right,” said Jerry. Making her panto debut at 58, Jerry said she did it because of her fond memories of going to watch panto with ex-hubby Mick Jagger and their four children.

“Christmas was such a big thing, but now they’re getting older I can do it. Mick and I always had a tradition of taking the children to see the pantomime at Richmond Theatre,” she said. They had a friendly divorce in 1999 and Sir Mick spent Christmas with her and the children. Luckily she got Christmas day off!

Sketch: Aaron Tveit in Assassins at the Menier Chocolate Factory

Posted on February 11, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

American actor and singer Aaron Tveit has just completed his run as John Wilkes Booth, the stage actor who assassinated US President Abraham Lincoln in Stephen Sondheim’s contentious musical Assassins at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London.

This razor sharp revival of the Tony award-winning production is a revue style portrayal of the nine men and women who attempted, successfully or not, to assassinate Presidents of the United States, and is directly Jamie Lloyd.

In 2012 Aaron played Enjolras, leader of the student revolutionary group in the film adaption of Les Miserables. He performed with the cast at the 85th Academy Awards the following year. He also stars as undercover FBI Special Agent Mike Warren in the USA Network series Graceland which premiered in the summer of 2013.

I managed to catch up with Aaron as he whizzed past me after his penultimate performance at last Saturday’s matinee. Obviously when fleeing the theatre after killling the most powerful man in the world, one does not linger… but he did long enough to sign my sketch of him in character and engage in a brief chat about his future work.

The show without Aaron finishes on the 7 March 2015.

Sketch: Maxine Peake in Hamlet

Posted on February 10, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre’s gender-bending 2014 production of Hamlet featuring the impressive Maxine Peake in the title role will be hitting the big screen soon.

Filmed over three nights, the sell out radical re-imagining of the Bard’s number one work will hit an estimate 200 cinemas in the UK next month.

The demand for tickets was so great, that the season was extended and became the theatre’s fastest selling show in a decade with over 75.000 people seeing it. Maxine can also currently be seen in the award-winning Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything.

“Peake’s gender ambiguous portrayal fascinatingly amplifies that element of the text,” The New Statesman’s Mark Lawson said.

Maxine is the Associate Artist at the Royal Exchange – a venue she has been with since her childhood and was a member of its Youth Theatre. Maxine is also a familiar face to small screen viewers. She was nominated for a BAFTA for her roles in the BBC One’s The Village and Handcock and Joan and also starred in the legal drama Silk, Shameless and as Myra Hindley in See No Evil.

I waited at the Royal Court Theatre stage door on a chilly Friday evening last week to meet Maxine in person, after a performance of How To Hold Your Breath. It was worth the wait. Maxine was a really nice person and kindly signed and dedicated my sketch. I asked her if she will be staging Hamlet in London. She said “nobody wants it. ” I’m sure that will change…

Sketch: James McAvoy in The Ruling Class at Trafalgar Studios

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

BAFTA wining actor James McAvoy returns to London’s Trafalgar Studios in the madcap revival of Peter Barne’s zany 1968 black comedy The Ruling Class, directed by Jamie Lloyd. It closes the second season of ‘Trafalgar Transformed’ at the Whitehall venue.

It’s an attack on the establishment in all its forms – aristocracy, public school, the church, the military. James plays Jack, the 14th Earl of Gurney and the dodgy offspring of a toff who inherits a peerage when his father topped himself while playing a sex-hanging game in a tutu.

Jack is a paranoid schizophrenic who believes he is Jesus Christ after an epiphany at a public urinal in East Acton.

“How do you know you are God?” he is asked.

“Simple” he replies. “When I pray to him, I find I am talking to myself.”

However, the mock messiah’s family scheme against him so he has to prove some sanity to keep the inheritance, fitting in with his peers to become the “right sort of mad”.

The Guardian’s Susannah Clapp describes James’ performance as “eel-like protean, with a mephistophelean charm” (note to readers, Mephistopheles was a demon in German folklore). “He’s just fascinating, brilliantly weird,” said Time Out.

The Ruling Class runs until 11 April 2015.

Sketch: Adam James, Eleanor Matsuura, Neil Stuke and Sam Troughton in Bull at The Young Vic Theatre

Posted on February 7, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Director Clare Lizzimore’s brutish production of Mike Bartlett’s 55 minute ‘study’ of office bullying entitled Bull is currently concluding its short run at London’s Young Vic.

Described but The Guardian as, “nasty and brutish,” the play is staged in the intimate Maria space, offering ringside seats (which are completely sold out!) as three employees – Isobel (Eleanor Matsuura), Tony (Adam James) and Thomas (Sam Troughton) fight to keep their jobs and avoid boss Carter’s (Neil Stuke) sword.

Isobel and Tony combine to make sure Thomas is the sacrifice as the playwright plots the destruction with, “the studied, elegant technique of a matador haunting a bull,” according to Laura Barrett in The Telegraph.

Originally staged in the Crucible’s studio space in Sheffield, it then enjoyed a run off Broadway before making its London debut, which has been extended until 14 February 2015.

The brilliant cast all signed my montage sketch after the mid week matinée this week.

Sketch: Zrinka Cvitešić in Once

Posted on February 3, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Thirty five year old Croatian actress Zrinka Cvitešić made her West End debut at the Phoenix Theatre as ‘Girl’ in the hit musical Once, receiving rave reviews and winning the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical.

She has also won a handful of awards for her celluloid work and a regular at the National Theatre of her native Croatia. I managed to meet Zrinka at the Royal Opera House stage door as she emerged, all glommed up to walk the red carpet at last year’s Oliviers and sh was very happy to sign it – even before she won!

Drawing: Sally Hawkins in Mrs Warren’s Profession on Broadway

Posted on February 2, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Golden Globe winner, Academy Award and BAFTA nominee Sally Hawkins made her Broadway debut in Doug Hughes’ revival of George Bernard Shaw’s controversial 1894 work Mrs Warren’s Profession at the American Airlines Theatre in the Autumn of 2010.

She portrayed Vivie, the daughter of Kitty Warren (Cherry Jones) the title character and ‘madam’ who rises out of the gutter to run a brain of brothels. Vivie was kept separate and ignorant of her mother’s world… until now.

The play was considered so shocking that it wasn’t performed in London until 1902 and then, only privately. It premiered on Broadway in 1905 at the Garrick Theatre and subsequently was revived in 1907, 1918, 1922 and 1976.

Sally signed this black biro sketch I drew of her and Cherry (who I unfortunately missed, but on my ‘wanted’ list) when she arrived back in the UK after the New York season ended.