Sketch: Michael Sheen as Hamlet

Posted on April 21, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

In May 2013 I posted a signed montage sketch of Michael Sheen as Hamlet, from the Young Vic winter 2011 production of the Bard’s number one play.

I had also drawn this biro portrait, which is actually one of my favourites, which Michael also signed.

Hamlet was directed by Ian Rickson and is set in the secure wing of a psychiatric hospital and features original music by PJ Harvey. The Telegraph declared Michael’s performance, “could be up there among the great Hamlets” and the Evening Standard said, “an audacious achievement that will live in the memory”.

He was really nice and took time to chat and ‘graph in The Cut Bar as he headed to the stage door for an evening performance. I was watching Stephen Frears’ The Queen the other night in which Michael stars as British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and remembered I had this other sketch.

So, here it is… after Royal decree.

Drawing: John Lithgow in The Magistrate at the National Theatre

Posted on February 26, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

I finally got the brilliant John Lithgow to sign a sketch for me.

The New York-born 69 year-old has appeared in more than 30 films, with two Oscar nominations and an equally impressive television list that includes the Emmy-award winning 3RD ROCK FROM THE SUN and DEXTER.

John’s distinguished stage career has spanned over four decades on both sides of the Atlantic. His 1973 Broadway debut in David Storey’s THE CHANGING ROOM earned him the Tony and Drama Desk Awards. He won his second Tony for his portrayal of J.J Hunsecker in the Broadway adaption of the 1957 film SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS in 2002.

During the winter of 2012/13 John crossed the ditch to appear on the London stage as the title character, police magistrate Aeneas Posket in the National Theatre’s revival of Arthur Pinero’s THE MAGISTRATE. I was lucky enough to catch a saturday matinee.

The following summer he retuned to New York and the Delacorte stage in Central Park’s Public Theatre’s production of KING LEAR, where he last appeared in 1975 in the role of Laertes in HAMLET. John listed playing ‘Lear’ at the top of his bucket list..”so there’s an empty space there now.” he quipped.

When asked what he disliked most about his appearance, John replied, “I have a love/hate relationship with my height-I am 6 foot 4 inches.”

John signed this sketch depicting his stage appearances in THE MAGISTRATE and KING LEAR at the John Golden Theatre in New York where he has just finished the limited season of Edward Albee’s A DELICATE BALANCE alongside Glenn Close. He actually dedicated it ‘To Mark’,but my letter must have been under the drawing because the inscription was written on the top of it with the most important sig on the sketch.

Sketch: Maxine Peake in Hamlet

Posted on February 10, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre’s gender-bending 2014 production of Hamlet featuring the impressive Maxine Peake in the title role will be hitting the big screen soon.

Filmed over three nights, the sell out radical re-imagining of the Bard’s number one work will hit an estimate 200 cinemas in the UK next month.

The demand for tickets was so great, that the season was extended and became the theatre’s fastest selling show in a decade with over 75.000 people seeing it. Maxine can also currently be seen in the award-winning Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything.

“Peake’s gender ambiguous portrayal fascinatingly amplifies that element of the text,” The New Statesman’s Mark Lawson said.

Maxine is the Associate Artist at the Royal Exchange – a venue she has been with since her childhood and was a member of its Youth Theatre. Maxine is also a familiar face to small screen viewers. She was nominated for a BAFTA for her roles in the BBC One’s The Village and Handcock and Joan and also starred in the legal drama Silk, Shameless and as Myra Hindley in See No Evil.

I waited at the Royal Court Theatre stage door on a chilly Friday evening last week to meet Maxine in person, after a performance of How To Hold Your Breath. It was worth the wait. Maxine was a really nice person and kindly signed and dedicated my sketch. I asked her if she will be staging Hamlet in London. She said “nobody wants it. ” I’m sure that will change…

Sketch: Anna Maxwell Martin in King Lear at The National Theatre

Posted on January 20, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Sam Mendes astonishing and absorbing production of King Lear at London’s National Theatre last summer included Anna Maxwell Martin playing the mad King’s eldest daughter with Simon Russell Beale in title role.

Lloyd Evans in The Spectator summed up the critics’ reviews, “There are outstanding performances from Anna Maxwell Martin, whose Regan is a hysterical sex freak turned on by torture.”

Anna has won two BAFTA awards, the first for her portrayal of Esther Summerson, the central character in the 2005 BBC adaption of Charles Dicken’s Bleak House. Her second was for playing ‘N’, a long-term mentally ill patient in Poppy Shakespeare three years later.

She was also nominated in 2011 for her role as Sarah Burton in South Riding.

Sketch: Antony Sher in Henry IV parts 1 and 2 at the Barbican Centre

Posted on January 15, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The Guardian’s esteemed critic Michael Billington writes that the Royal Shakespeare Company’s current production of the Bard’s two Henry plays at London’s Barbican Centre contains a ‘major, magnificent and magnetic performance from Antony Sher as Falstaff, the comic sack-soaked carouser, coward and companion to Price Hal. It is something we have come to expect from an actor who never gives any role less than his all.

Winner of two Laurence Olivier Awards in 1997 for his portrayal of British painter Stanley Spencer in Stanley and in 1985 for his towering break-through performance as the title character in Richard III. In the latter, Sir Antony propelled himself around the stage on two giant crutches (as a result of his own injury,adding authenticity to his portrayal) which Billington rates along with Olivier’s 1955 film version as the best he has seen. It was a performance that ‘still haunts me’, he said.

Gregory Doran’s Henry, Parts I & II -‘A sublime blend of fathomless gloom and mad merriment’ continues at the Barbican until 24 January.

Drawing: Kate Fleetwood in King Lear and Macbeth

Posted on December 6, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

British actress Kate Fleetwood will be well known to cinema audiences from her roles in films such as Harry Potter, Les Misérables and Philomena, but it’s her stage work that has won her the most plaudits.

She made her Broadway debut opposite Patrick Stewart in the critically lauded Chichester Festival Theatre production of Macbeth in 2008. Her ferocious and much younger ‘trophy wife’ portrayal of Lady Macbeth won wide acclaim and a Tony Award nomination. In 2012 Kate was also nominated for the Olivier for her performance as Julie in the musical London Road at the National Theatre in London.

Earlier this year she played the power hungry eldest daughter in Sam Mendes’ production of King Lear also at the National. Lloyd Evans in The Spectator described her, “outstanding performance” as a,”slinky, ice cold Goneril glides around like Wallis Simpson looking for a playboy to chew up and spit out”.

This montage sketch, kindly signed and dedicated, captures Kate in both roles.

Drawing: Edward Petherbridge in My Perfect Mind at The Young Vic Theatre

Posted on September 27, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The Guardian labelled the two man show My Perfect Mind, “an exquisite piece of tomfoolery”. Performed by Paul Hunter and Olivier Award winner Edward Petherbridge, it has just finished a four week run at London’s Young Vic as part of a UK tour. It is inspired by Edward’s experience of not playing Lear.

In 2007, Edward travelled to Wellington in New Zealand to fulfil his long cherished ambition to play Shakespeare’s King Lear. Two days into rehearsal he suffered a stroke that left him partially paralysed. Remarkably, he was still able to remember every world of the mad monarch.

It’s played on a disorientating tilted stage in a world that’s off kilter and difficult to physically negotiate. The title is from Lear’s most chilling line “I fear I am not in my perfect mind”. It is a very funny piece mixed with the fact that we are all heading, like Lear, towards our own private struggle sot maintain perfect mind.

It’s a show that invokes the ghosts of Petherbridge’s childhood, the ghosts of all those actors who have played Lear and the ghost of the performance that Edward never got to give.

Paul plays a variety of characters who have figured in Petherbridge’s life, including Lord Olivier, the actor’s mother (herself a stroke victim) and the Fool to his Lear. He signed my sketch going in, but I missed Edward. Waiting at the lower stage door, (the Young Vic has at least two) I missed him again after the performance. He and left via the upper stage door since the play is performed in the upper auditorium. Paul told me he was eating at an Italian restaurant over the road and assured me he wouldn’t mind the intrusion.

It’s not my usual practice, stalking people when they are eating, but, more in my left mind I did. I apologised. “You expected the entrée, not a fool with a drawing”. He graciously signed it, while I kept apologising to him and his companions.

Tim Walker in his five star review in The Telegraph said of Edward, “… has acquired a tremendous sense of majesty that makes him a magnetic stage presence: I sincerely hope he may yet get to play Lear and deliver the lines that remain so stubbornly in his head”…. or at least finish his post-show Italian dinner without interruption by a theatrical scribbler.

Drawing: Al Pacino

Posted on September 25, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

I drew this portrait of Al Pacino as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice in 2011. Actually, I drew a couple of sketches of him in the New York production. One I posted, but never came back. This one sat in my bag folder I carry daily, along with other numerous drawings of possible luminaries I might come across. Last Sunday he was at London’s BFI for the screening of Salome (the film) and WIld Salome (the doco). I was not optimistic as I positioned myself in a pen with a pen sat the beginning of the red carpet.

He made his Broadway debut in Don Petersen’s Does A Tiger Wear A Necktie? at the Belasco Theater on Februry 25, 1969. Although it closed after 39 performances Al received rave reviews, winning the Tony Award.

Al played the Bard’s ruthless Venetian Jewish money lender in the summer of 2010 in a Shakespeare in the Park production of The Merchant of Venice. It transferred to the Broadhurst Theater in October and continued there until February 2011, with Al being nominated for another Tony.

He can be difficult to get a ‘graph from because everyone wants him, and if you do get one, it can be unrecognisable. He’s very quick. The customary ‘Al’ has many variations, especially when you’re caught up in the maelstrom that surrounds Alfredo James Pacino.

A climate change protest in Central London grid-locked the traffic, including Al’s car. We were warned he will be late, will do press and go in… but never fear, he will come back to sign. All that happened, but not necessarily in that order. He would talk to media, then slip over to the baying crowd and sign a bit.

On one such sortie, he came down the line to me, but it was mayhem and he pulled away to head back to the press. He then noticed my sketch and came back, took it and signed a great ‘Al’ on it, gave me the thumbs up, handed it back and moved back to the media scrum. My folder was one sheet lighter and my collection now included one of the greastest actors of our time.

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.”

Drawing, Gina McKee in Richard III at Trafalgar Studios

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

BAFTA winning British actress Gina McKee is currently starring opposite Martin Freeman in Richard III at London’s Trafalgar Studios. She made her Hampstead Theatre debut in early 2013 playing Viv alongside Anna Maxwell Martin and Tamzin Outhwaite in Amelia Bullmore’s comedy Di and Viv and Rose. It dealt with the vagaries of friendship among a group of co-habitating women – three students at a northern university in the early 1980s.

In 2010 she appeared as Goneril in King Lear at the Donmar Warehouse with Derek Jacobi and directed by Michael Grandage. She received an Olivier nomination for her performance.

This year she reunited with director Jamie Lloyd to play Queen Elizabeth in Richard III at the Trafalgar Studios, whre she signed my sketch this week. The play runs until 27 September 2014.