Drawing: Joan Baez

Posted on September 23, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Joan Baez is the world’s best known female folk singer. She defined the American folk music boom in the 1960s, has influenced nearly every aspect of popular music ever since, and is still going strong. Being a life long pacifist and activist gives greater meaning to her music and lyrics.

“You don’t get to choose how you’re going to die, or when. You can only decide how you’re going to live”.

In a Guardian interview in 2006 by her own admission she only had two real hits; ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’ and ‘Diamonds and Rust’ but the music was always less important to her than the message, since walking on stage at the Newport Folk Festival in 1959 as an 18 year old. Since then she has not been in entertaining people so much as moving them, making them feel “true to the spirit of the times”. Early in her career she played traditional folk music, adding political songs to her repertoire during the 1960s decade of civil rights, advocating peace during the Vietnam War and social change. “I went to jail for 11 days for disturbing the peace. I was trying to disturb the war”

Joan played London’s Royal Albert Hall for four nights last week in what reviewers called, “a remarkable show that earned her a standing ovation”. I grew up listening to her music on the ‘wireless’ and my parents’ vinyl 45s . I was a nice moment to finally meet her. Most performers arrive at the Artists’ Entrance in flash, chauffeur driven cars, Joan arrived in a cab. When I asked her if she wouldn’t mind signing my sketch she looked at it and said, “you’ve been busy”. Not half as busy as her and she’s still going strong.

Drawing: Toby Stephens and Anna-Louise Plowman in Private Lives at the Gielgud Theatre

Posted on September 20, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Husband and wife team Toby Stephens and Anna-Louise Plowman appeared in Noël Coward’s classic comedy Private Lives at the Gielgud Theatre in July 2013.

A married couple playing a married couple; the line between reality and fiction becomes blurred and hard to define – a bit of ‘dramatic ambiguity’. It was the second time they played newly-weds Elyot and Sybil after a successful run at Chichester the previous Autumn. The entire cast, including Anna Chancellor and Anthony Calf, transferred to the West End.

Coward’s tale is of former lovers Elyot and Amanda who meet five years after their divorce while both on honeymoon with new amours. Reignited passion follows. Toby’s parents Dame Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens previously starred in a John Gielgud directed production of the same play, alongside Anthony’s mother-in-law Polly Adams.

Toby and Anna-Louise both co-produced the London transfer and both happily signed my sketch the stage door on an autumnal evening in September 2013.

Drawing: Daniel Mays in Trelawny of the Wells at the Donmar Warehouse

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

British actor Daniel Mays’ impressive list of credentials extend beyond the screen to the stage. Recently part of the stellar cast in Mojo at the Pinter, Daniel preceded it with his role as the pretentious thespian Ferdinand Gadd who fervently believes his audience can no longer be denied his Orlando in the wonderfully funny Trelawny of the Wells at the Domar Warehouse in London in 2013.

After directing such films as Atonement and Anna Karenina, this was Joe Wright’s first play, and he chose Pinero’s warm hearted tibute to the theatrical medium itself, written in 1898. Daniel was nominated for the WhatsOnStage Best Supporting Actor Award for his roles in both Trelawny and Mojo

Drawing: Paula Creamer “The Pink Panther”

Posted on September 18, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

American golfer Paula Creamer has won 12 tournaments, including 10 LPGA Tour events since her rookie year in 2005. That included the 2010 US Women’s Open.

Nicknamed ‘The Pink Panther’ due to her fondness for wearing pink, Pink Panther club covers and sometimes playing with pink balls, Paula has been as high as number 2 in the Women’s World Golf Rankings.

She recently competed in the final major the year – the Evian Championship at the Evian Resort Club in Evian-les-Banis, finishing seventh after a strong finish wit a bogey-free 66 in the final round. The former champion (2005) signed my sketch at the resort last week… in blue, not pink.

Oh yes, and the other thing, she travels with her dog, a Coton de Tulear called Studley.

Drawing: Joanna Page

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The delightful Welsh actress Joanna Page not only signed my sketch, she sent me a complimentary note with it. After graduating from RADA she spent ten years treading the boards in costume dramas at the National and for the Royal Shakespeare Company, followed by film appearances, including Miss Julie and Love, Actually. But she is probably best known for her lead role in the BBC comedy Gavin & Stacey, playing Stacey the bubbly protagonist from Barry.

Speaking to the Radio Times, Joanna said that despite all her roles, the character of Stacey is the one she still identifies with the most. “I think I will always be seen as this small, blonde 20 year old, even in my fifties. I will be like Felicity Kendall is now.”

Drawing: Richard Armitage in The Crucible at the Old Vic Theatre

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Maybe it was because he’s Robin Hood on the telly, or more lily because he is Thorin Oakenshield in Perter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy that accounted for the hoards of people – mostly female – that became part of the nightly vigil to meet Richard Armitage outside the Old Vic stage door in London during its recent season of The Crucible.

At the heart of Arthur Miller’s tale of religious hysteria in the Salem Witch trials of 1692 was an immense performance as John Proctor from Richard. Apparently his first stage part was playing an elf in a production of The Hobbit at the Alex Theatre in Birmingham. His appearance certainly created some offstage hysteria as well.

Once again I left it to the final week to try and get a sketch signed, with the excepted consequences. Actually, as a back up I did leave one a couple of months earlier at the theatre, but it hadn’t appeared through the mail box by the time the last few days rolled around. This sketch was a quick one of Richard and Samantha Colley in rehearsal.

At three and a half hours The Crucible‘s Finish time was 11pm, giving a small window of opportunity before the last train home. The line stretched along the entire side wall of the Old Vic, from stage door to front door. I was positioned three quarters down it with tales of woe by ardent ‘Armitagees’ that he doesn’t always complete the line. This night he did, but very quickly. To accommodate everyone’s demands he used the abbreviated initials ‘RA’ not the full version. ‘RA’ with a tail and lower case ‘g’ slipped near the end like an abandoned hair clip. Still, he quickly graphed my drawing and moved on.

Drawing: Nick Moran in Twelve Angry Men at The Garrick Theatre

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Twelve Angry Men was originally written for television in 1954, later adapted as a feature film with Henry Fonda, then for the stage.

The real-time jury room drama, in which a lone crusader for justice (Juror 8) persuades his unforgiving fellow white jurors that the unseen black prisoner on trial for his life may not be guilty, returned to the London stage at the Garrick Theatre at the end of 2013 and early 2014.

Nick Moran, “every mum’s favourite angel-faced thug” (as described by The Spectator), is Juror 7, a nervy, clownish, spivvy marmalade salesman, impatient to delivery any verdict so he can slope off to watch a ball game. He was part of an impressive ensemble cast that included Martin Shaw, Robert Vaughn, Jeff Fahey, Miles Richardson and Tom Conti.

Drawing: Denise Van Outen as Roxie Hart in Chicago at the Adelphi Theatre

Posted on September 12, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Denise van Outen’s most memorable musical role was the vaudevillian murderess Roxie Hart in the hit musical Chicago at the Adelphi Theatre in London’s West End in 2001. The twenty week run completely sold out. She reprised the role on Broadway in the spring of 2002, before returning to the London production.

Denise signed this sketch I did of her in the role at the Arts Theatre in London after he performance in the one woman musical play Some Girl I Used To Know which she also wrote with Terry Ronald.

Drawing: Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess in Love Never Dies at the Adelphi Theatre

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Love Never Dies – the sequel to Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s long running musical The Phantom of the Opera opened at the Adelphi Theatre in London’s West End on 9 March 2010. Ramin Karimloo played the title role with Sierra Boggess as Christine. They coined the term ‘Rierra’. Ramin was the Phantom in the original West End production and the show’s 21st anniversary Phantom in 2007.

Sierra was cast in the Las Vegas production of Phantom in the role of Christien Daaé at the Venetian Resort in 2006. Both Ramin and Sierra were nominated for Olivier Awards, and the production received seven nominations. They signed by sketch after the world premiere at the Adelphi Theatre stage door in pouring rain on 9 March 2010.

Drawing: Kara Tointon and Rupert Everett in Pygmalion

Posted on September 10, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The Chichester production of George Bernard Shaw’s greatest play Pygmalion, transferred to London’s West End for a three month season at the Garrick Theatre in the Summer of 2011.

New cast member Kara Tointon, previously know for Eastenders and winning Strictly Come Dancing made a terrific West End stage debut as the cockney guttersnipe Eliza Doolittle, who transforms from torturing innocent vowels into a toff with a posh elocution when becoming the subject of a bet between Professor of Phonetics and confirmed bachelor Henry Higgins and a fellow linguist .

Rupert Everett reprised the role of his devilish and unconventional Higgins from Chichester.