This is the second drawing Ed Harris signed for me at the Trafalgar Studios where he appears as Dodge, the whiskey-soaked patriarch of a dysfunctional family in Sam Shepard’s American gothic play BURIED CHILD. His performance has garnered excellent reviews with the guardian’s Michael Billington calling it, “utterly compelling.”
Ed signed my sketch just before Christmas and the production has been extended until early March this year.
Both Amy Madigan and her husband Ed Harris are making their London stage debuts in Sam Shepard’s celebrated play BURIED CHILD at the Trafalgar Studios. Sam Elliot’s revival transferred from a two month run at New York’s Pershing Square Signature Theatre. Amy plays Hallie, the psychologically troubled matriarch of a dysfunctional family which the Guardian’s Michael Billington described as “deftly mixing self-delusion with downright flirtiness.”
Amy received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination in 1985 for TWICE IN A LIFETIME and won a Golden Globe for her portrayal as Sarah Weddington in the 1989 TV film ROE vs WADE.
I meet the very approachable and friendly couple after an evening performance just before Christmas and they were happy to sign my drawings.
Known as one of the great singing actresses of our time, American opera star Patricia Racette returned to Covent Garden replacing Martina Serafin in the role of Georgette in Il TABARRO in February 2016. Associated with the world’s leading orchestras in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, NewYork and London, Patricia has excelled in Puccini and Verdi operas. Her well-known roles include Violetta in LA TRAVIATA, both Mimi and Musetta in LA BOHEME, Cio-Cio San in MADAMA BUTTERFLY and Desdemona in OTELLO. I left this montage sketch of Patricia at the Royal Opera House last February and when it didn’t come back after a month I thought it was a goner…but it returned this week it arrived back almost a year later, signed and dedicated.
The UK and Ireland touring production of DIRTY DANCING had a December stopover at the Phoenix Theatre in the West End with Lewis Griffiths as Johnny Castle and Katie Hartland playing the role of Frances ‘Baby’ Houseman. When it premiered in London at the Aldwych Theatre in 2006 the stage adaption of the hit 1987 film was the highest pre-sell in London’s history before a two year tour then returning to the Piccadilly Theatre in 2013 for another twelve months.
Lewis is no stranger to major musical productions with roles in PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT, LEGALLY BLONDE, GHOST and JERSEY BOYS, but this is Katie’s professional musical theatre debut after recently graduating from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
I left this drawing at the theatre just before Christmas and it arrived back signed and dedicated last week.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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