Drawing: Fiona Button and Elliot Cowan in An Ideal Husband at the Vaudeville Theatre

Posted on September 6, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Lindsay Posner’s production of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband, a classic comedy of political blackmail and corruption played London’s Vaudeville Theatre during the festive season of 2010.

Wilde gave the funniest lines to Lord Arthur Goring. SOme have suggested that the character with his similar wit and fashion to be based on the playwright himself. The ‘dandy’ was portrayed by Elliot Cowan, with his fancy threads and wayward habits, which critics agreed made “a splendidly lived in hero”.

He is engaged to Miss Mabel Chiltern, who, at half his age, is play by Fiona Button, “…whose silken repartee flowed as elegantly as her skirts”.

Her line “An ideal husband! Oh, I don’t think I should like that,” sums up her innocence. Both Fiona and Elliot signed this black biro sketch amongst the snow flurries at the uncovered Vaudeville stage door.

Drawing: Cillian Murphy Stephen Rea and Mikel Murfi in Ballyturk

Posted on September 5, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Enda Walsh’s latest play Ballyturk opens on the Lyttelton stage at London’s National Theatre next week (11 September 2014) directed by the playwright for one month only. Since premiering at the Galway Arts Festival in July, it has been a sell out smash hit at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin and the Cork Opera House.

Cillian Murphy returns to the National following his electrifying solo performance in Enda’s Misterman. He is joined by the author’s long time collaborator Mikel Murfi and internationally acclaimed film and theatre actor Stephen Rea.

Michael Billington in The Guardian called it “a manic physical comedy like Under Milk Wood as interpreted by Buster Keaton”. Irish critic Fintan O’Toole simply called it “Eric and Ernie” (Cillian and Mikel) two innocent men, simply identified as one and two, who share a bed but are not lovers, in a windowless basement covered in layers of pencil drawings, in an imagined Irish no-place called Ballyturk. Character 3 (Stephen) enters the frenetic desperation on stage as a quiet, anti-climatic chain-smoking deus ex machina (this is a plot device, it’s from Latin meaning ‘go from the machine’ and is used by the writer to solve seemingly insolvable problems with a new character or event) who terrifies them!

Ballyturk is a continuation of Walsh’s last collaboration with Cillian and Mikel in Misterman. Enda said he and all three actors in mind when he wrote the piece.

All three kindly signed my sketch at the Olympia during the production’s run in mid-August.

Drawing: Sarah Green in The Cripple of Inishmaan

Posted on September 1, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Cork born actress Sarah Greene’s memorable performance as ‘Slippy’ Helen McCormick in Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan gained her recognition on both sides of the Atlantic. The dark Irish comedy was the middle production in Michael Grandage‘s 5 play season at the Noël Coward Theatre in London’s West End.

Sarah’s portrayal of the feisty redhead prone to picking fights and breaking eggs over people’s heads opposite Daniel Radcliffe’s ‘Cripple Billy’ earned her an Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role . When the play transferred to The Cort Theater on Broadway she picked up a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress. She was awarded the 2014 World Theater Award for Outstanding Broadway Debut.

During its run on the West End, Sarah’s breaks were usually at the stage door, partaking of the tobacco. She was always happy to chat and friendly to everyone. I drew some ‘Helen’ sketches which Sarah signed, but this one was a quick two minute portrait which I thought captured her nicely ‘out of character’.

Drawing: Lisa Dwan in Not I, Footfalls and Rockaby

Posted on August 30, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Irish actress Lisa Dwan has just completed a two week solo season of three short works by fellow Celt Samuel Beckett, following critically acclaimed sold-out performances at the Royal Court Theatre and the West End. Not I, Footfalls and Rockaby completed its sold out run today (30 August 2014) at the Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room in Central London as part of the Festival of Love.

Lisa plays the part of Mouth in Not I, a nine minute monologue where the audience sees only a woman’s disembodied mouth suspended eight feet above a black stage. To achieve this Lisa wears black makeup, a black blindfold, covers her hair with black tights, then straps her head to a blackboard with a hole in it – so that her mouth stays in the single beam of light. She first performed the piece in 2005.

It’s certainly one of the most challenging stage roles with total sensory deprivation. “I can’t see or hear anything. It’s like driving down the motorway the wrong way with no handbrake – it’s terrifying… but it’s almost the most exhilarating role I’ve ever known,” Lisa said in an interview. The crucial thing is it’s done at speed – after a lifetime of virtual speechlessness, the character has ‘verbal diarrhoea’.

Completing the Becket trilogy is Footfalls, the moving story of May who moves back and forth like a metronome on a bare landing outside her dying mother’s room, and his most famous piece Rockaby with a woman recounting moments form her past sitting in her rocking chair. Metro called it “A mesmerising, heart-wrenching, terrifying triple.” The Standard simply said, “sensationally good” and The Telegraph said, “A stunning performance.”

Drawing: David Haig in The Madness of George III

Posted on August 28, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Alan’s Bennett’s play The Madness of George III premiered in November 1991 on the Lyttelton stage of the National Theatre in London, directed by Nicholas Hytner, with the late, great Nigel Hawthorne in the title role.

It’s the fictionalised biographical study of the latter half of the reign of George III. Critics labelled Nigel’s Olivier Award winning performance as “astonishing” and “unforgettable”. He also played the role in the 1994 film version, entitle The Madness of King George, also directed by Sir Nicholas H. I’ve always liked the film’s tagline: ‘His Majesty was all powerful and all knowing. But he wasn’t quite all there.’ It was nominated for 4 Oscars, including one for Nigel and 14 BAFTAS.

David Haig played the mental monarch in the revival of the play at The Apollo in the Spring of 2012. The Telegraph’s Charles Spencer compared David’s performance to Nigel’s saying, “it seemed an impossible act to follow, but David Haig proves every inch Hawthorne’s equal in a performance of extraordinary emotion, tenderness and humour”. David was nominated for an Olivier Award.

Drawing: Gemma Atkinson in Calendar Girls

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

British actress, TV personality and model Gemma Atkinson first came to prominence playing Lisa Hunter in the teenage soap Hollyoaks. In theatre she appeared in Peter Pan at the Manchester Opera House in 2012, playing the lead role. “It’s nice to be boyish and not have to worry about my appearance and I get to fly!”

She played the more revealing role of Elaine in the West End production of Tim Firth’s Calendar Girls, at the Noël Coward Theatre in the Summer of 2009, where she signed this quick black biro sketch for me. Gemma also toured with the production, this time playing Celia, Miss September. She is currently back in BBC’s Casualty, playing Tamzin Boyle,

Drawing: Davina Perera in Wuthering Heights

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

I met Davina Perera after a performance of Privates on Parade at the Noel Coward Theatre in February 2013. It was the first production of Michael Grandage‘s Season of Five Plays. She played Sylvia Morgan in sad circumstances. Her friend Sophiya Hague was originally performing the role a month earlier. I had drawn a sketch of Sophiya and was waiting at the stage door to get her to sign it. She didn’t appear, which can often happen, so I thought, “oh well, another night.” The next day I read in the newspaper that she and passed away. Sophiya probably best remembered to TV views as Poppy Morales in Coronation Street was diagnosed with cancer around Christmas and died on 17 January 2013 aged 41.

Davina and Sophiya had been in four shows together and shared a dressing room on each occasion. In a recent interview Davina commented, “I was honoured to be in her last show with her and carry it on for her in her name. I am sure wherever she is she is still dancing.”

Retiring to London from her Broadway debut in Around the World in Eighty Days, Davina was last seen in the National Theatre’s The Shed in Yellow Face – David Henry Hwang’s dramatic comedy about race, based on Jonathan Pryce’s role as an Asian in the original production of Miss Saigon.

Davina actually made her West End Debut poling Yvette in Miss Saigon in 2001, at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. In Yellow Face there are 88 characters, she plays 21 of them.

This sketch is from the 2009 Tamasha and Oldham Coliseum production of Wuthering Heights at the Lyric Hammersmith, The Bronte classic has been adapted into 23 plays, 14 musical versions and 8 films. This one is a Bollywood musical set in Rajasthan in the 1870s. Davina signed it for me that night at the Noel Coward Stage door after a quiet word about Sophiya.

Drawing: Bryony Kimmings in Sex Idiot

Posted on August 23, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Award winning British performance artist Bryony Kimmings also includes ‘activist, writer, Feminist, Comedian, Auntie and person’ to her Twitter description. Her work is described as ‘haphazard, loud, dangerous, unpredictable and mega fun’.

“It is an artist’s duty to say and explore the things that are untouchable or hard to talk about.” Bryony uses a combination of music, dance, story-telling, video, comedy and the autobiographical narrative, inspired by taboos and anomalies of British culture.

She gained notoriety as a solo artist with Sex Idiot in 2010 – a funny and unapologetic account of the female sexuality in the 21st century. For the show’s finale Bryony requests audience members to donate some of their pubic, which she sticks together to form a moustache for one of her songs.

7 Day Drunk is a collaboration with a team of scientists to analyse the impact of alcohol on her creativity. In a studio-based experiment a GP, a psychologist and a neuroscientist monitored her alcohol levels over a week, while she created art and performances. For the live shows she performs and creates artwork sober then compares them to footage of the experiment and asks the audience to rate the results.

“I feel I am a better artist when drunk or hungover,” she said, which is not uncommon to creative people, given the centuries of artistic achievement of influential work under the influence.

Last year she performed Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model at the Soho Theatre with her mini-me, 9 year old niece Taylor, who faces a barrage of stereotypical princesses and pop stars in a desperate need of a role model to guide her through the expectations and confusions of womanhood.

She reprised Sex Idiot for one week only this month as part of The Festival of Love at London’s Southbank Centre. “I promise this is the last time in the UK until I do it at my own funeral,” she commented. I left this sketch at the venue and she returned it signed with a nice dedication.

Drawing: Glenda Jackson in Marat/Sade

Posted on August 20, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The Persecution and Assasination of Jean-Paul Marat As Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (whew) is a 1963 play by German writer Peter Weiss. I won’t give you the German version. Thankfully, it’s usually shortened to Marat/Sade.

Set in the historical French Charenton Asylum, it is a ‘play within a play’, where the actors are inmates. The play within the play is directed by the Marquis de Sade (the man after whom sadism is named) culminating in the assasination of Jean-Paul Marat.

The 1964 production was staged at London’s Aldwych Theatre, directed by Peter Brook. It featured the powerhouse actress Glenda Jackson in her first major role. She played Marat’s assassin Charlotte Corday as a ‘waif-like narcoleptic unable to control her behaviour’.

Writing in The Observer thirty six years later, David Edgar said, “I was 16 when I saw this and it suddenly made clear to me what theatre could do… it was the best performance I’ve ever seen”. The production ran on Broadway in 1965 and in Paris. Glenda also appeared in the 1967 film version. Glenda was nominated for a Tony Award.

She left the theatrical stage for the political boards in 1992, where she is a Labour Party MP representing Hampstead and Kilburn. She signed this sketch at the House of Commons last week.

Drawing: Pippa Nixon in Thérèse Raquin and King John

Posted on August 19, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Over the past seven years English actress Pippa Nixon has taken on a mixture of critically acclaimed stage roles in both contemporary and classical writing. Her three year residency at the Royal Shakespeare Company saw Pippa play many leading roles. In 2012 she worked with Maria Aberg in a production of Shakespeare’s King John where she played a female bastard, the illegitimate offspring of Richard I. It was a part that earned her many stars. Simon Taverner said, :Outstanding – no other word for it.”

Pippa has just completed a short season of Thérèse Raquin at the Theare Royal in bath, Michael Billington said in The Guardian, “Pippa Nixon is destined for stardom… Her great gift is the ability to act with every inch of her body.”