Drawing: Harry Enfield in Once In A Lifetime

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Mark Winter / Chicane

harry-enfield

At 55, BAFTA-Award winning British comedian, actor, writer and director Harry Enfield made his stage debut in the London revival of Moss Hart and George S Kaufman’s classic 1930’s Broadway comedy ONCE IN A LIFETIME, which finishes its festive season at the Young Vic Theatre next weekend. Harry plays film studio mogul Herman Glogauer at the dawn of the talkies when Hollywood was transformed with the introduction of synchronised sound and the end of the silent era.

By all accounts his performance drew positive reviews in the mainstream press. The Guardian’s Michael Billington headlined his review with “Harry Enfield is a legit hit in Hollywood satire,” going on to say he “makes an assured theatre debut.”

The affable Harry is always friendly with his fans and took time to stop for photos and sign some graphs, including my sketch before Saturday’s matinee.

Drawing: Reece Shearsmith in The Dresser

Posted on January 6, 2017 by Mark Winter / Chicane

reece-sheersmith-dresser

Ken Stott and Reece Shearsmith has been gathering rave reviews for their performances as Sir and Norman respectively in Sean Foley’s excellent revival of Ronald Harwood’s classic play THE DRESSER, which ends its run at London’s Duke of York’s theatre next week. I drew a sketch of them together and also individual character drawings which they both signed at the stage door. This is Reece in a ‘Norman’ montage as the officious gate-keeper to Sir’s lair.

In his review, The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish called Reece’s performance as a ‘revelation’ and said, “There’s simply not a line mistimed, a movement misjudged and the particular triumph is that the 47-year-old comic actor takes us from entertaining,surface-polished camp mannerism, lots of limp wrists and arch, waspish asides, to a placed psychological perturbation, no less harrowing or stirring than the madness that afflicts his employer.”

Drawing: Micky Flanagan

Posted on January 5, 2017 by Mark Winter / Chicane

micky-flannagan

One of the best-loved comedians in the UK today and ‘a working class boy done good’. Micky Flanagan did a series of work in progress shows across London during the Autumn. This provided me with an ideal opportunity to get this drawing signed… well, should have provided me with the opportunity, especially at the Hippodrome and the Leicester Square Theatre, on the fringe of Chinatown, frequent stalking haunts of mine and only a block apart. I spent an inordinate amount of time back and forth on numerous occasions. Plenty of massage offers, but no Mick, so I mailed it to him and and early Christmas present arrived back signed and dedicated.

His latest Sky1 new series THE MICKY FLANAGAN DETOURS where he declutter his mind of the big questions that keep us up at night starts soon and a nationwide 16 venue tour entitled AN’ ANOTHER FING… is scheduled for later this year.

Drawing: Mark Lockyer in Living With The Lights On

Posted on January 4, 2017 by Mark Winter / Chicane

mark-lockyer

In 1995 actor Mark Lockyer had a very public meltdown while playing Mercutio in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of ROMEO AND JULIET in Stratford. His erratic behaviour including a fumbled Queen Mab speech and seizing a saxophone from a musician mid-performance and giving a Courtney Pine impersonation and being furious afterwards when an enraged stage manager thought it was Ackerman Bilk was a result of ‘meeting the devil on the banks of the Avon.’

His undiagnosed bipolar disorder lead to imprisonment, arson and eventually treatment in a mental hospital. Now twenty years later, his gripping solo show LIVING WITH THE LIGHTS ON is a ‘brutally funny account of mental illness’.

“Lockyer has one hell of a story and he tells it rivetingly well,” wrote Dominic Maxwell in The Times. I meet Mark after his matinee performance last Friday at London’s Young Vic Theatre and he signed my drawing with a solitary ‘M’, saying “that’s how I sign my name,” which I replied was perfectly fine.

Drawing: Samantha Baines in 1 Woman, a Dwarf Planet and 2 Cox

Posted on January 3, 2017 by Mark Winter / Chicane

sam-baines

English actress and broadcaster Samantha Baines first comic turn happened in 2015 when her stand-up career birthed at The Comedy Store in London. A year later she was nominated for all the awards going, winning the What The Frock! Best Newcomer gong.

Probably best known to small screen viewers as Janet on BBC’s SUNNY D, Dot in CALL THE MIDWIFE and recently Mary the ‘cougher’ in the 4th episode of Netflix’s THE CROWN, Sam’s debut comedy show 1 WOMAN, A DWARF PLANET AND 2 COX featured at last year’s Edinburgh Festival. Described as ‘science meets funny’ Sam needs space… the final frontier kind, as one comedy’s brightest stars loosely documents her action plan for romantically ensnaring Professor Brian Cox.

I had hoped to catch up with Sam in person when she was scheduled to perform the show one night at the Museum of Comedy, but she had to cancel due to a family bereavement, so I posted my sketch to her. She kindly emailed me to acknowledge its arrival and returned it, signed and inscribed.

2016 in Cartoons

Posted on December 31, 2016 by Mark Winter / Chicane

A selection of 2016 Chicanery. blank1 borisman3 cannonisation clown-craze-6 dunce-donald europeein3 gove-groper lunch1 may-prey nice-5 north-korea not-for-turning pokemon1 russia-in-charge3 russian-athletes syrian-crisis trumped-7

Drawing: Milos Forman

Posted on December 30, 2016 by Mark Winter / Chicane

milos-forman

I was very happy to receive this in the post yesterday. One of my all-time favourite film directors, Czech-born, New York-based Milos Forman signed and returned this drawing. Although I had corresponded with Milos a few times over the years, I had never actually sketched him, until late this year when the omission suddenly dawned on me. I quickly engaged the 4B and posted the result to the 84 year-old, forthwith. Regarded as one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of his generation and the master of ironic comedy and sumptuous period dramas, he was fascinated with odd, yet sympathetic characters, exploring their struggles as individuals against systems and standards that oppress them.

Growing up in the small, Central Bohemian town of Caslav, near Prague, it was Milos’ parents who nurtured his love of cinema at a young age. Sadly orphaned when both his mother and father died in Nazi concentration camps during the second World War, he went on to become the most important director of the Czechoslovak New Wave, before moving to America in 1968. His multiple accolades include two Best Director Academy Awards, the first for the potent adaption of Ken Kesey’s ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (1975) and his second for Peter Shaffer’s AMADEUS (1984), both Best Picture winners, with the former considered one of the best films ever made. Incidentally two of my top ten films as well.

In its Milos retrospective, the AFI summarised his body of work, “Based on intelligent scripts, Forman’s work is characterised by a sharp anti-authoritarian spirit and a lucid, heart felt humanism.”

Drawing: Ophelia Lovibond as Elizabeth Barry in The Libertine

Posted on December 29, 2016 by Mark Winter / Chicane

ophelia-lovibond2

This is the second sketch I drew of in-demand London actress with the memorable name, Ophelia Lovibond in her West End debut in the ‘sexually-charged masterpiece’ THE LIBERTINE. The Theatre Royal Bath production transferred to the Theatre Royal Haymarket for a limited season concluding earlier this month. Ophelia played 17th Century actress Elizabeth Barry opposite Dominic Cooper’s Earl of Rochester, Restoration England’s most notorious rake and pornographic poet.

Ophelia had signed my previous drawing early in the London run and I had this other one still in my folder when passing the theatre’s stage door after the final performance, where the cast were gathered with fans. I thought, why not and she was very complimentary about the second sketch and more than happy to sign it.

Drawing: Samantha Barks in Cabaret and City of Angels

Posted on December 28, 2016 by Mark Winter / Chicane

samantha-barks

British songstress Samantha Barks made her stage debut as Sally Bowles in the 2008-09 UK Tour of CABARET, followed by her West End introduction as Eponine in LES MISERABLES at the Queen’s Theatre in 2010. Regarded as one of the finest to perform the tragic street waif, Sam was chosen by Director Tom Hooper to reprise the part in the 2012 film adaption.

Sam returned to the West End in the dual roles of Mallory and Avril for Josie Rourke’s revival of the Tony and Olivier Award-winning musical comedy CITY OF ANGELS at the Donmar Warehouse in the winter of 2014. Her latest London stage appearance was at the St James’ Theatre in THE LAST FIVE YEARS with Jonathan Bailey, which finished before Christmas, where she signed this drawing for me after the final performance.

Drawing: Dead Funny

Posted on December 27, 2016 by Mark Winter / Chicane

dead-funny

“Painfully funny and funnily painful comedy,” said The Times about DEAD FUNNY, Terry Johnson’s homage to the golden age of British TV comedy. I was lucky enough to see the original production when it transferred from Hampstead to the Vaudeville Theatre in London’s West End in 1994, featuring Zoe Wanamaker and David Haig.

It returned to the same theatre this Autumn, again directed by the writer for a limited run until next February. Lead by Katherine Parkinson as Eleanor, the frustrated wife in a flatlining marriage who is desperate for a baby with her pompous, intimancy-phobic husband Richard, played by Rufus Jones. He gets his jollies chairing the Dead Funny Society, a group of nerdy, emotionally deficient comedy aficionados – Ralf Little (Nick), Steve Pemberton (Brian) and Emily Berrington (Lisa), who meet up in April 1992 when two of Britain’s cherished funnymen Benny Hill and Frankie Howard copped it on consecutive days to not only mourn, but celebrate their contribution to hilarity and laughter.

In the end it’s Eleanor who provides the final irony in the play, wrote Guardian critic Michael Billington, “even though she despises the Dead Funny Society, she is the only one with a sense of humour.

“Johnson’s classic brings laughs with a lump in the throat. Comedy may have changed radically since Johnson wrote the play, but it still holds a disturbing mirror up to all those of us who worship at the shrine of dead comics,” he concluded.

I managed get my montage signed by all five ‘Live Funny’ actors amongst the festive rush at the Vaudeville stage door over the past week.