Tag Archives: Signature

Drawing: Michele Dotrice in The Importance of Being Earnest

Posted on by
1

michele dotrice

I had the good fortune to walk on the (Oscar) Wilde side on Saturday after detouring from The Elephant Man across to Covent Garden to the Vaudeville Theatre’s stage door on my post-matinee meandering, where The Importance of Being Earnest is currently playing. I was after a romantic, repressed spinster in love with a village preacher – Miss Laetitia Prism…well not the character, but the actress playing  Mr. W’s parody for ‘a woman with a past’, the delightful Michele Dotrice. As Alexandra Coghlan wrote in The Arts Desk, “The unexpected heroes of the night are Michele Dotrice and Richard O’Callaghan as ageing lovers Miss Prism and Dr Chasuble. Quivering with girlish passion, Dotrice balances comedy with a startling pathos in her ‘female of repellent aspect’.”

Michele has a long and distinguished stage career, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company at the age of sixteen, but she is probably known more to global audiences as Betty,the long-suffering wife of ‘Oh Frank!’ Spencer (Michael Crawford) in the BBC series Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em. Forty years on the show still attracts tens of thousands of hits each day on YouTube.

Michele left her character on the stage and slipped out the door to have a bite to eat before going back for a sold-out evening performance. With a line from Miss Prism’s dialogue in mind, “I am not in favour of this modern mania for turning bad people into good people at a moments notice”, I disrupted her journey and asked if she could sign my sketch, which she did ‘with pleasure’ and my trusty black Pentel fine point pen. She must have had that same line in her mind, using the ‘good’ word, for the drawing, not necessarily the drawer.

 

Drawing: The Elephant Man at Theatre Royal Haymarket

Posted on by
Reply

the elephant man

The Tony-nominated Broadway production of Bernard Pomerance’s The Elephant Man with Bradley Cooper, Alessandro Nivola and Patricia Clarkson ended its three-month West End run at London’s Theatre Royal, Haymarket on Saturday.

Based on the real life of the severely deformed Joseph Merrick (Bradley), it tells the story of renowned physician Frederick Treves ( Alessandro) who rescues him from a travelling freak show to live his short life in the safe and secure environs of a London hospital.  While there he becomes friends with the beautiful actress Mrs kendal (Patricia) who is deeply touched by his pure and genuine soul.

I had drawn individual sketches of all three leads, which they signed for me in the opening week. I also did this composite sketch of them, which I wasn’t going to bother getting signed…but at the last minute, well the final day, I thought, why not? There are essentially three chances to catch the cast on a Saturday-going in,coming out after the matinee, coming out after the evening performance. Technically four, if you count them returning from the matinee exit. Right, that sorted, I aimed for after the matinee. Only Alessandro appeared and, as usual was extremely charming and complimentary about the drawing and signed. I asked him what he was doing next, he said a film with Robert De Niro…”A bit of a come down then?,” I quipped…a questionable attempt at humour. He laughed! Such a polite man. The very efficient stage manager let the crowd know that Bradley and Patricia would not be coming out, so that saved waiting time. Since I had one, I was now obliged to get the other two to complete the task. When I returned after the final performance, the barriers were packed, six deep, which made that task a little more tricky. My many years of stalking experience..I stop short of calling it prowess..enabled me to eventually secure a spot three deep, amongst a number of gushing Bradleybabes, (sorry, I’m not familiar with what a collective of his adoring female public are called ) ready to get selfies…not siggys. The man himself  eventually appeared and as he had done for the entire run ,”did the line’. While the gazillion selfies were being taken he spotted my sketch which I was trying to hold in a strategic position and not get in the way of anyone’s photograph and reached over for it. I asked him to dedicate it ‘To Mark” and he said “got it…thanks”. After he left the throng subsided, so it was much easier to get Patricia, who said she had loved her time in London..oh and the drawing.

Drawing: James and Jack Fox in Dear Lupin

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Lupin

Continuing the theme of yesterday’s post about parents and their children currently sharing the London stage, Dear Lupin opened this week at the Apollo Theatre, with father and son, James and Jack Fox in the poignant two-hander, after a successful UK tour.

Adapted for the stage by Michael Simkins, the play is based on the award-winning 2012 surprise best-seller,’Dear Lupin, Letters To A Wayward Son’ by the late racing journalist Roger Mortimer and the humorous father and son letters that spanned 25 years.

Members of Britain’s most famous acting dynasty, two-time BAFTA winner James plays Mortimer (and a host of walk-on characters, including an ageing Soho prostitute) with  his youngest son Jack as the rebellious offspring Charlie-“a youthful delinquent who grows into a mature delinquent…much loved by his dad.” In her four-star review for the Evening Standard, Fiona Montford wrote, “The real-life affection between James and Jack Fox perfectly suits this charming tale of parental love.”

I managed to catch James and Jack, together at the Apollo stage door after their first Saturday matinee. They both signed this sketch, adding simple dedications, with the senior Fox resisting his character’s quest to write me a letter regarding my wayward vices of drawing theatre sketches and sig-stalking.

Drawing: Inbee Park

Posted on by
Reply

Inbee park

“The greatest day of my life,” is how world number one golfer Inbee Park described her win in the Women’s British Open  at the Turnberry Golf Course in Scotland last Sunday. The 27 year-old Korean equalled the course record with a seven-under-par 65 in the final round to finish 12 under. winning by three strokes over compatriot Jin-Young Ko. “The golf god was on my side,” she said, claiming her seventh major title. She is well on her way to becoming one of the all-time greats with her sixth victory out of the last 14 majors and is the second youngest to complete the career ‘Grand Slam’, behind Tiger Woods.

Inbee signed, dedicated and returned this sketch for me after I sent it to Turnberry.

Drawing: The King’s Speech

Posted on by
Reply

The Kings Speech

Before it reached the big screen, The King’s Speech was a play. At its heart is the relationship between the stuttering King George VI and the Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue’s treatment to correct the English Royal’s debilitating impediment.

As a child, writer David Seidler developed a stammer caused by the emotional trauma of World War II, including the murder of his grandparents during the Holocaust. King George VI’s success overcoming his stammer inspired him . He began researching the story in the 1970s and 80s but abandoned it after the Queen Mother asked him not to pursue the project during her lifetime. After she died in 2002, he returned to it. David discovered his own uncle was also a stutterer, who had been sent to see Lionel Logue by David’s grandfather. At a reading of the play in London’s small Pleasance Theatre in 20015 to a group of Australian expats, Tom Hooper’s mother was present and contacted her son with his “next project”.

Tom asked David to develop the screenplay. It went on to win the BAFTA and the Best Picture Oscar, however the play was left unproduced until 2012.

It made its West End premiere at Wyndhams Theatre in March after a UK tour and strong reviews. It featured Charles Edwards as the King, Jonathan Hyde as Lionel, Emma Fielding (Queen Elizabeth), Joss Ackland (George V) and Ian McNeice (Winston Churchill).

They all signed this sketch on the 12 May 2012 after the final performance.

Drawing: Grace Savage in Blind

Posted on by
Reply

Grace Savage

Grace Savage is such a great oxymoron for a name, but quite apt for the twice British Beatboxing Champion.

Softly spoken, she has cultivated an extraordinary ‘vocal gymnastic’ talent that makes her far more feisty than she may first appear. As one scribe put it “Grace grows into the beatboxing savage”.

WhatsOnStage called her performance an “incredible blizzard of noise and rhythm… made the hairs on my neck stand on end”.

Grace appeared as Jade in Home at the National Theatre in 2013 and returned to the stage with her solo show Blind, which has just completed a two week residency upstairs at the Soho Theatre in London. On her website testimonials page Will Smith wrote, “Your beatboxing is incredible. You sound like an MP3”. As a child she would mimic sounds – everything from ambulance sirens to the hiss of the kettle.

Blind was created with the Leeds based theatre company The Paper Birds and is based on Grace’s auditory influences growing up in Devon. Receiving rave reviews at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, Grace visits, beat by beat, her teenage days – a mash up of pulsating bass, playground gossip beatbox battles, drunken brawls and news broadcasts charting her rise to becoming the country’s champion beatboxer.

Metro called her “staggering”, The Guardian said “Savage is mesmerising”.

I met Grace after her final performance at the Soho last Saturday night where she graphed this sketch.

Drawing: Robert Sean Leonard in To Kill a Mockingbird

Posted on by
Reply

robert sean leonard

One of my favourite films is Peter Weir’s Dead Poet’s Society, in which Robert Sean Leonard features as the tortured Neil Perry who discovers his love of theatre and gets the lead in a local production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “If I had my way, I would just do theatre, if it paid better,” Robert said in an interview prior to taking on the iconic role of Maycomb County lawyer Atticus Finch in Christopher Sergel’s  stage adaption of Lee Harper’s seminal novel,To Kill A Mockingbird in the Open Air Theatre’s production in London’s Regent Theatre two years ago. He reprised the role when the production moved indoors to the Barbican for a month run, which finished last weekend. Initially he didn’t think it would work as a play, in fact he didn’t know the stage version existed. “The book and the film are so good, why do a play?” he said. Plus there was the ‘shadow’ of Gregory Peck’s Oscar-winning portrayal in the 1962 film and taking on the role scared him. But he admitted he was wrong and told TimeOut it was “one my favourite things I have ever done.” It was favourite with the critics as well. BritishTheatre.com said,”perfection,complete with slightly crumpled lined three piece suite…it’s a magical performance that makes every other cast member’s job that much easier.” A three-time Tony Award nominee, Robert won in 2001 for his role as A.E.Houseman in Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love. While this is testament to his theatre prowess and love for the stage over the screen, he was also part of the very successful TV series House,M.D for eight seasons, playing Hugh Laurie’s stoic sidekick Dr James Wilson.

Robert kindly signed my sketch for me on the last performance day at the Barbican.

Drawing: Butley at The Duchess Theatre

Posted on by
6

Butley

A summer’s day in London, and what better way to spend it than taking in a matinee of a West End play. Some may say there are better things to do on a summer’s day, but this is London and it was raining, (we had summer the weekend before). I chose the late Simon Grey’s dark comedy Butley at the Duchess. University lecturer, T.S.Eliot scholar and perpetual drunk Ben Butley is having a monumentally bad day, so bad, he’s making sure everyone else has a worse one. His trusty arsenal of mischievous irony and gleeful troublemaking prove to be the weapons of his own self-destruction. In the title role was the charismatic Dominic West, ably supported by a superb cast, Paul McGann, Amanda Drew, Martin Hutson, Penny Downie, Emma Huddleston and Cai Brigden. Last year I posted a couple of sketches  Dominic and Paul signed, but this black biro drawing included all seven cast members. It is,however, difficult to get stuff signed while inside the theatre watching the play, although I always think the best time to get everyone would be during the curtain call. Alas,not a plan shared by theatre management. Multiple cast can prove logistically difficult for obvious reasons, none more so than when they all leave at the same time it’s like trying to collect marbles rolling on a glass floor. The Duchess Theatre does have one thing going for the autograph aficionado, there’s only one entry and exit point, (as far as I know) to the left of the main doors and almost under cover, albeit under a leaking veranda. I had drawn this sketch earlier based on the promotional material adorning the theatre and managed to get it signed by all, either going in or coming out in  sig-friendly file. Even the late afternoon sun decided to shine on this successful summer’s saturday..momentarily.

 

Drawing: Kristin Scott Thomas in The Audience

Posted on by
Reply

Kristen Scott Thomas

Dame Kristin Scott Thomas completed her three-month role as Queen Elizabeth ll in Peter Morgan’s hit production The Audience, directed by Stephen Daldry at London’s Apollo Theatre on Saturday evening. The play received it’s world premiere next door at the Gielgud in February 2013, with Dame Helen Mirren in the lead role. It’s inspired by the Queen’s private weekly meetings with all of Britain’s Prime Ministers during her six decades on the throne. This quick revival was updated to include the recent UK General Election, opening two days before polling. Apparently auditions were held for an ‘Ed Miliband’ just in case, but in response to the results, Morgan rewrote the scene between the Monarch and David Cameron (Mark Dexter). Coinciding with this production, Dame Helen was reprising the royal role at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre on Broadway. It finished it’s season at the end of June, with Helen winning every major award, including the Tony. Dominic Cavendish in The Telegraph wrote, “Scott Thomas is a match for Mirren,’  a sentiment matched by the majority of critics and theatre-goers alike. Just weeks before embarking on her portrayal, Kristin had first-hand experience of her subject when she meet the Queen to receive her damehood for services to drama. Kristin recalled the conversation in an interview afterwards and said the Queen asked her what she was doing next. After being told she replied, ‘It would be quite q challenge.”

Waiting at stage doors on final nights can be drawn out affairs, so I didn’t have my drawing out when Dame Kristin was super quick to appear to a sizeable gathering of her ‘subjects’, She chatted amongst them and signed items which gave me time to get it ready and queue for the royal siggy of approval.

Drawing: Andrew Garfield in Death of a Salesman

Posted on by
4

Andrew Garfield

Characters in conflict make great drawing subjects and Andrew Garfield was reported to have said, “I’m drawn to conflicted characters,” in the New York Times, while performing the role of Biff Loman in Mike Nichol’s revival of Arthur Miller’s modern classic Death of A Salesman at the Barrymore Theatre on New York’s Great White Way in 2012.

And you don’t get a more tortured soul and role than the character of Biff Loman, the eldest son of the delusional salesman Willy Loman, played by the late, great, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

“It’s a wrenching performance, exquisitely calibrated… and the final confrontation, in which the tarnished golden boy tries with desperate futility to make Willy face reality is so devastating that it’s not uncommon to hear sobs in the theatre,” wrote David Rooney in the New York Times. It was a performance that earned Andrew a Tony Award nomination.

Born in Los Angeles but raised in England, Andrew’s short but already impressive stage and screen career had its international breakthrough in 2010 with David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin’s brilliant chronicle of the birth of Facebook, The Social Network, as Eduardo Saverin the most ethical of the operation who was shut out by his co-founders . It was a role that earned him multiple awards attention including Golden Glboe and BAFTA nomination and it was the performance that persuaded Mike Nicols to cast him as Biff, stating “What you see is Andrew’s enormous emotional equipment.”

Sending stuff for signing to Broadway theatres is always a hit and miss affair, so I planned to get Andrew to sign this sketch of him as Biff at the Gala screening of The Amazing Spiderman at London’s Odeon Cinema in Leicester Square at the end of June 2012, after he completed his Salesman run.

Positioning myself at the drop-off point allowed me to get Andrew early as he got out of the car and came directly over to us before the PAs  tend to lead the talent away to do press.

Andrew usually has a rapid, minimal sig-even more than this one, so I was very pleased he stopped for a chat and to get this dedication and a more ‘extended’ graph, after which the pushy PA reminded him of the time constraints, to which he retorted, “I’m already using my abbreviated autograph!’ but accelerated his walk after that and his along with his sig.