Italian-born Australian actress, Greta Scacchi is fluent in English, French, Italian and German which has been the foundation for a versatile career on both screen and stage. She won an Emmy in 1996 for her portrayal of the Russian Princess Alexandra in RASPUTIN: DARK SERVANT OF DESTINY. In May 2011 Greta appeared with Anita Dobson in the play BETTE AND JOAN at the Arts Theatre in London. She signed this sketch on Opening Night.
English actress Felicity Jones’ latest role is the heroine in THE INVISIBLE WOMAN, the biopic of Charles Dickens. Directed by Ralph Fiennes,who also plays the renowned English writer, the film follows his relationship with 18 year old actress Nelly Ternan, while still married with nine children. Felicity’s acting career is far from invisible, dividing her time equally between stage and screen with equal aplomb. Her last performance on the boards was in Mike Poulton’s new version of Friedrich Schiller’s LUISE MILLER at the Donmar, which critics referred to as ‘the Felicity Jones phenomenon.’ After delivering the final ‘unbearable’ moments, she was still able to sign my sketch as she left the theatre in July 2011.
Oscar winner Estelle Parsons made her West End debut at the age of 82, playing the comical Dutch psychic Helga ten Dorp in the revival of Ira Levin’s Deathtrap at the Noël Coward Theatre in August 2010, following two years in Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County on Broadway and a US tour.
Estelle had worked on the London stage almost thirty years before when she bought her acclaimed off-Broadway Miss Margarida’s Way to the Hampstead Theatre in North London. She has received four Tony nominations, including one for her one woman show Margaridas.
Estelle signed both my biro line sketches – one as Miss Margarida – at the Music Box Theatre in New York in August 2008 during Osage County’s run.
Both Keeley Hawes and her husband Matthew Macfadyen appeared in the West End at the same time… but two blocks apart. Matthew is still currently playing the dutiful valet, Jeeves in PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster: Perfect Nonsense, at the Duke of York’s while Keeley finished her run at Wyndham’s as Chrissie Packer in Clive Exton’s comedy Barking in Essex.
Keeley’s memorable TV roles include Zoe Reynolds in Spooks, Alex Drake in Ashes to Ashes and Kathy Butler in Tipping the Velvet. She is also the voice of the iconic Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider video games.
Both Keeley and Matthew are Patrons of CHASE, hospice care for children.
Ben Miller leads an all-star cast, including Diana Vickers, in the West End premiere of The Duck House directed by Terry Johnson at the Vaudeville Theatre. Written by Dan Patterson and Colin Swash, this outrageous laugh out loud comedy is set in a world of dodgy receipts and deceit and Parliamentary panic during the expenses scandal.
On a night better for ducks, the constant rain and an uncovered stage door was a challenge for autograph collecting – Sharpies and showers! So there’s more water than ink on the sketch as both Ben and Diana kindly dodged the drops to sign – sorry about the dodgy scan, it’s not the flattest of drawings any longer!
Joe Wright’s bold and innovative “re-imagining of the Russian classic Anna Karenina shot on a single sound stage in a dilapidated theatre starred Keira Knightley in the title role.
The film was adapted by Tom Stoppard from Leo Tolstoy’s 1877 novel depicting the tragedy of Russian aristocrat Anna Karenina, wife of senior statesman Alexei Karenin who has an affair with the affluent officer Count Vronksy. (Aaron Taylor-Johnson).
It garnered four Academy Award and six BAFTA nominations, winning both Best Costume Design prizes.
I just missed getting Keira to sign my sketch of her as the Russian socialite at the film’s world premiere at the Odeon in Leicester Square in September 2012, but eventually got her ‘graph, and might I say, a good ‘graph (usually it’s a quick K) and a dedication at the European premiere of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit a couple of weeks ago.
David Tennant calls theatre work his “default way of being” but there’s no faulting his latest foray on to the boards with the Bard’s Richard II at Stratford-Upon-Avon in October and November 2013, before transferring to the Barbican in London, completing its run last Saturday.
“There are many splendid things about the RSCs production of Shakespeare’s history play, not least of which is David Tennant’s hair,” one critic wrote. “With his startled eyes and concentrated frowns, Tennant is frail, pale and consistently interesting.”
The Danish actress Birgitte Hjort Sorensen took the role of Roxie Hart in the 2007 production of Chicago at the Del Ny Theatre in Copenhagen. Based on that success she reprised the role in the London production at the Cambridge Theatre. Birgitte gained international prominence playing the crusading reporter Katrine Fonsmark in the Danish radio and television production Borgen.
She returned to London last year to play Virgilia in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus opposite Tom Hiddleston at the Donmar Warehouse, where she signed this sketch last week.
Irish actress Dervla Kirwan’s breakthrough came with her role as Assumpta Fitzgerald in the BBC drama Ballykissangel, winning a National Television Award in 1996. She is currently in the West End transfer of Conor McPherson’s The Weir, following a sell-out run at the Donmar last year.
She signed this quick 4B pencil portrait at last week’s press night (Tuesday 21 January 2014) at the Wyndham’s Theatre.
Lauded as one of the great Shakespearean interpreters on both stage and film, Sir Kenneth Branagh returned to Shakespeare after more than a decade in July 2013. He co-directed and headlined in Macbeth with Rob Ashford at the Manchester International Festival. Alex Kingston played Lady Macbeth. Set in the intimate, deconsecrated St Peter’s Church to sell-out performances, the production will transfer to the Park Avenue Armoury in New York this June, marking Ken’s stage debut in the Big Apple.
A BAFTA and Emmy winner, he is the first man to be nominated for an Academy Award in five different categories, the most recent as Supporting Actor, playing Sir Laurence Olivier in My Week With Marilyn.
He walked the red carpet at the Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit European premiere at the Vue Cinema in Leicester Square this week as both director and antagonist Russian Viktor Cherevin, and signed my quick black biro Macbeth portrait.
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