Drawing: Flora Spencer-Longhurst, William Houston and Indira Varma in Titus Andronicus at Shakespeare’s Globe

Posted on July 16, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Shakespeare’s Globe opened its 2014 summer season with a revisiting of Lucy Bailey’s hugely successful Titus Andronicus.

Audience members were warned in advance of its grisly content with the offer of witnessing one of the darkest and most seminal productions in the Globe’s history. In the height of summer in 2006 dozens of people who bought standing tickets fainted each show. Fainting isn’t exactly uncommon amongst Globe groundlings (£5 standing ticket holders) so, “our front of house staff are very well trained,” said a Globe spokesperson.

Grotesquely violent and daringly experimental, Titus was the smash hit of Shakespeare’s early career, “written with a ghoulish energy he was never to repeat. “It stars William Houston as the unstable Roman general Titus and Indira Varma as the haughty Goth Queen Tamora in what one critic described as ‘Tarantino-esque’.

Playing Lavinia, Titus’s daughter, actress Flora Spencer-Longhurst has her tongue and hands cut off after she is raped. “Despite my character having her tongue ripped out, it is the most articulate role I have ever played!” she told The Daily Mail.

On one particular evening alone it was reported that five people had fainted. The Independent’s Holly Williams wrote, “A confession: I fainted. I’m not alone. Audience members are dropping like flies at this revival of Lucy Bailey’s infamously gory 2006 staging.”

Escaping the bloodshed on Saturday for the final performance, I dodged raindrops and left this sketch at the stage door, which Williams, Indira and Flora kindly signed for me, without spilling a drop of red stuff on it.

Drawing: Lydia Ko

Posted on July 14, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Seventeen year old New Zealand golfing sensation Lydia Ko played the Women’s British Open at Royal Birkdale (20 miles north of Liverpool) this week, ranked No 2 in the world.

She was the world’s top ranked amateur golfer for 130 weeks before turning professional in October 2013. Born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in New Zealand, Lydia began playing golf as 5 year old, when her mother took her to a pro shop at the Pupuke Golf Club in Auckland. In April 2014 she was named one of TIME Magazines’s 100 most influential people.

Lydia signed my sketch on a practice day at the famous Merseyside Course.

Drawing: Bernard Jordan The Great Escaper

Posted on July 12, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The story that knocked the speeches of world leaders and royalty off the front pages during last month’s 70th Anniversary of the D-Day Landings in Normandy during World War II was Bernard Jordan. Bernard, 89, served as an officer in the Royal Navy at the D-Day landings. He was part of Operation Overlord.

He captured the hearts of millions and became Britain’s favourite runaway, sneaking out of the Pines Nursing Home in Hove to join compatriots at the commemoration on Normandy Beach, sparking a frantic missing persons search. The staff had tried to get Jordan a place on the tour with the Royal British Legion, but it was fully booked.

He summarised the spirit and determination of June 6, 1944 and hatched a cunning plan. On the Thursday morning, wearing a grey mac to hide the medals pinned on his best suit, Bernard slipped out of the houme, headed to Brighton station and caught a train to Portsmouth. He found a party of veterans on the dockside and hitched a ride on a ferry to Normandy.

He lacked accreditation, but managed to evade security to be within 100 yards of the Queen and other world leaders.

He returned home, not to the telling off he feared, but a hero’s welcome and a cup of tea. “I had a good time, every minute of it. I’m pleased I did it. I’d do it again tomorrow,” he said.

The former Mayor of Hove was honoured with the Freedom of the City for “capturing the imagination of a generation.” On his 90th birhtday a week later he was overhelmed with 2,500 cards from around the world, including one from me and this sketch, which he kindly signed and returned.

Drawing: Julie Atherton as Kate Monster in Avenue Q

Posted on July 11, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Julie Atherton was part of the original West End cast of the musical Avenue Q when it transferred from Broadway to the Noël Coward Theatre in June 2006. She played Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut until December 2007, returning to the production at the Gilegud in late 2008 until October 2009. I saw the show in June that year where Julie signed these sketches for me.

Julie will be playing the lead role in Thérèse Raquin at the Park Theatre in London from 31 July to 24 August 2014.

Drawing: Imogen Stubbs in Little Eyolf at the Jermyn Street Theatre

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Actress and playwright Imogen Stubbs is a veteran of over 40 plays, starting with the role of Sally Bowles in Cabaret at the Wolsey Theatre in 1985. In 2011 she took her most harrowing part as Rita in Henrik Ibsen’s 1894 play Little Eyolf at the Jermyn Street Theatre in London.

“No one could describe Ibsen’s play as fun, but Imogen Stubb’s performance almost blows the roof off the theatre,” wrote Charles Spencer in The Telegraph.

Imogen’s most recent foray onto the West End boards was Strangers On A Train. She signed this sketch for me at the Jermyn Street Theatre in May 2011.

Drawing: Jonathan Pryce in The Caretaker at Trafalgar Studios

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Welsh actor Jonathan Pryce is equally at home on screen and stage. Critically lauded for his versatility, Jonathan’s breakthrough film performance was in Terry Gilliam’s 1985 cult film Brazil. Five years earlier he won the Olivier Award for his title role in the Royal Court’s production of Hamlet. In his Broadway debut he won the Tony for Comedians in 1997. He collected his second Olivier and Tony for playing the engineer in Miss Saigon.

Jonathan’s filmography includes The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man’s Chest, Evita, Glengarry Glen Ross, Tomorrow Never Dies and Carrington, for which he won the Best Actor award at Cannes. Jonathan was also nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his role as Henry Kravis in the 1993 television film Barbarians At The Gate.

While starring in the National’s My Fair Lady his co-star Martine McCutcheon was so frequently absent that he made an appeal form the stage for any member of the audience who fancied playing Eliza to make themselves known.

In 2010 he played Davies, the loquacious tramp in Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker at the Trafalgar Studios in London. It transferred from an initial run at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre. He had previously appeared in the National Theatre’s 1981 production of the play in the role of Mick, the dangerous young hustler. “It’s one of those plays you graduate through in the course of your life,” Jonathan was quoted.

Drawing: Nick Kyrgios

Posted on July 5, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The overnight sensation of this year’s Wimbledon has been 19 year old Nick Kyrgios, the 1.93m Australian teenager with a Greek father and a Malaysian mother. Making his debut at SW19, he was playing courtesy of a wild card entry and ranked 144 in the world. Very few thought he had any chance of beating world number 1, Rafa Nadal on centre court in the fourth round. Four sets later he produced the shock of the tournament, blitzing the two time champion 7-6 (7-5), 5-7, 7-6 (7-5), 6-3.

He put his motivation down to his mother’s prediction that he would lose. “My mum said Rafa was too good for me and it made me a bit angry.”

In the second round he saved nine match points to beat 13th seed Richard Gasquet, but fell to Canadian eighth seed Milos Raonic in the quarters. However, from a ranking of 838 last season, he is guaranteed to read the mid 60s. Going into the quarter finals, Nick was leading the ace standing with 113. A staggering 37 of those were bashed past Nadal. He is donating £5 for every ace served at Wimbledon to the Rally for Bally fund – set up in memory of former British No 1 Elena Baltacha.

His cheeky ‘tweener’ – a beteen the legs stoke that sent the ball out of Nadal’s reach, went viral on YouTube, amassing more than 500,000 views. I was actually at The Championsoips on ‘the’ day and watched events unfold from ‘the hill’, amongst a very vocal group of Aussie supporters and manged to get this sketch to him the next day, which he signed and returned along with a clipping from The Times reporting his sensational victory.

Drawing: Gemma Arterton in The Duchess of Malfi at Shakespeare’s Globe

Posted on July 4, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Gemma Arterton made her professional stage debut at Shakespeare’s Globe in 2007, with huge critical acclaim as Rosaline in Loves’s Labour’s Lost while still a student at RADA. She returned at the beginning of the year to play the title role in the Jacobean tragedy The Duchess of Malfi by English dramatist John Webster directed by Dominic Dromgoole.

It opened the curtain on the inaugural season at the Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse – an intimate 340 seat indoor Jacobean theatre, built from authentic designs and craftsmanship of the period. It is named after the director and actor who founded the modern recreation of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. The conspiratorial atmosphere is enhanced with the 17th century practice of being lit almost solely by beeswax candles.

The Duchess is one of the great theatrical roles for women and Gemma jumped at the chance to play her on such a magical stage. “It’s like Tarantino,” she said, “there’s mass bloodshed, incest, violence, lots of kick-arse stuff and everybody dies in the end.” Gemma’s own death scene is gruesome. She is strangled with two ropes pulling in opposing directions for nearly ten minutes.

Drawing: Andrew Scott, Lisa Dillon and Tom Burke in Design for Living

Posted on July 3, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Initially banned in the UK, Noël Coward’s 1932 provocative, witty, dark, bisexual comedy Design For Living had a major revival at London’s Old Vic in the Winter of 2010.

Directed by Old Vic Associate and Tony Award winner Anthony Page, the production featured Tom Burke (Otto), Lisa Dillon (Gilda) and Andrew Scott (Leo) as the menage-a-trois in this three act, two interval play.

Otto is a painter, Leo is a playwright and Gilda is an interior designer. The lines of engagement are: Gilda lives with artist Otto, but is equally drawn to playwright Leo. The two men, however, have enjoyed intimacy that predates Gilda.

Critic Michael Billington said, “the play offers a genuine contest between the bohemian talentocracy and moral orthodoxy. It is an attack on bourgeois stuffiness.”

As Leo puts it, “I love you. You love me. You love Otto. I love Otto. Otto loves you. Otto loves me,” providing the basis for the play’s plot convolutions.

Drawing: Bryan Cranston in All The Way on Broadway

Posted on July 2, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Bryan Cranston won this year’s Tony award for his portrayal of the former US president Lyndon B Johnson in the play All The Way at the Neil SImon Theatre on Broadway. The title of the play takes its name from Johnson’s 1964 campaign slogan ‘All The Way With LBJ’.

It was a good year for winning awards. His role as Walter White in Breaking Bad earned him a Golden Globe, after five nominations. It was a role he had previously won three consecutive Emmys for.

Bryan attended the May premiere of Godzilla at the Odeon in Leicester Square. I had hoped to get him to sign it in person. Alas, I missed, so sent i tot him at the theatre in New York, where he kindly signed and returned it.