Drawing: Richard Armitage in The Crucible at the Old Vic Theatre

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Maybe it was because he’s Robin Hood on the telly, or more lily because he is Thorin Oakenshield in Perter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy that accounted for the hoards of people – mostly female – that became part of the nightly vigil to meet Richard Armitage outside the Old Vic stage door in London during its recent season of The Crucible.

At the heart of Arthur Miller’s tale of religious hysteria in the Salem Witch trials of 1692 was an immense performance as John Proctor from Richard. Apparently his first stage part was playing an elf in a production of The Hobbit at the Alex Theatre in Birmingham. His appearance certainly created some offstage hysteria as well.

Once again I left it to the final week to try and get a sketch signed, with the excepted consequences. Actually, as a back up I did leave one a couple of months earlier at the theatre, but it hadn’t appeared through the mail box by the time the last few days rolled around. This sketch was a quick one of Richard and Samantha Colley in rehearsal.

At three and a half hours The Crucible‘s Finish time was 11pm, giving a small window of opportunity before the last train home. The line stretched along the entire side wall of the Old Vic, from stage door to front door. I was positioned three quarters down it with tales of woe by ardent ‘Armitagees’ that he doesn’t always complete the line. This night he did, but very quickly. To accommodate everyone’s demands he used the abbreviated initials ‘RA’ not the full version. ‘RA’ with a tail and lower case ‘g’ slipped near the end like an abandoned hair clip. Still, he quickly graphed my drawing and moved on.

Drawing: Nick Moran in Twelve Angry Men at The Garrick Theatre

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Twelve Angry Men was originally written for television in 1954, later adapted as a feature film with Henry Fonda, then for the stage.

The real-time jury room drama, in which a lone crusader for justice (Juror 8) persuades his unforgiving fellow white jurors that the unseen black prisoner on trial for his life may not be guilty, returned to the London stage at the Garrick Theatre at the end of 2013 and early 2014.

Nick Moran, “every mum’s favourite angel-faced thug” (as described by The Spectator), is Juror 7, a nervy, clownish, spivvy marmalade salesman, impatient to delivery any verdict so he can slope off to watch a ball game. He was part of an impressive ensemble cast that included Martin Shaw, Robert Vaughn, Jeff Fahey, Miles Richardson and Tom Conti.

Drawing: Denise Van Outen as Roxie Hart in Chicago at the Adelphi Theatre

Posted on September 12, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Denise van Outen’s most memorable musical role was the vaudevillian murderess Roxie Hart in the hit musical Chicago at the Adelphi Theatre in London’s West End in 2001. The twenty week run completely sold out. She reprised the role on Broadway in the spring of 2002, before returning to the London production.

Denise signed this sketch I did of her in the role at the Arts Theatre in London after he performance in the one woman musical play Some Girl I Used To Know which she also wrote with Terry Ronald.

Drawing: Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess in Love Never Dies at the Adelphi Theatre

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Love Never Dies – the sequel to Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s long running musical The Phantom of the Opera opened at the Adelphi Theatre in London’s West End on 9 March 2010. Ramin Karimloo played the title role with Sierra Boggess as Christine. They coined the term ‘Rierra’. Ramin was the Phantom in the original West End production and the show’s 21st anniversary Phantom in 2007.

Sierra was cast in the Las Vegas production of Phantom in the role of Christien Daaé at the Venetian Resort in 2006. Both Ramin and Sierra were nominated for Olivier Awards, and the production received seven nominations. They signed by sketch after the world premiere at the Adelphi Theatre stage door in pouring rain on 9 March 2010.

Drawing: Kara Tointon and Rupert Everett in Pygmalion

Posted on September 10, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The Chichester production of George Bernard Shaw’s greatest play Pygmalion, transferred to London’s West End for a three month season at the Garrick Theatre in the Summer of 2011.

New cast member Kara Tointon, previously know for Eastenders and winning Strictly Come Dancing made a terrific West End stage debut as the cockney guttersnipe Eliza Doolittle, who transforms from torturing innocent vowels into a toff with a posh elocution when becoming the subject of a bet between Professor of Phonetics and confirmed bachelor Henry Higgins and a fellow linguist .

Rupert Everett reprised the role of his devilish and unconventional Higgins from Chichester.

Drawing: Sarah Goldberg in Clybourne Park at Wyndham’s Theatre

Posted on September 9, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Canadian film, television and stage actress Sarah Goldberg made a swift impression on the London Theatre scene. After graduating form the prestigious London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art she stayed on and picked up an Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress in Bruce Norris’ Pulitzer Prize winning play Clybourne Park. An ensemble of seven versatile actors plays two sets of characters in a black comedy of manners, fifty years apart.

Sarah played dual roles of Betsy, a deaf, pregnant wife of a racist community activist in the 1950s and Lindsey, the contemporary and also pregnant home buyer whose renovations disturb her African American neighbours.

The production premiered in the UK in August 2010 at the Royal Court Theatre, directed by Dominic Cooke before transferring to Wyndham’s in London’s West End with most of the original cast.

Drawing: Ryan The Bisexual Lion

Posted on September 8, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Ryan The Bisexual Lion is the star of the smash hit solo stand-up show called Sex with Animals. He is the altered-ego of American creator and writer Ryan Good, a longtime member of the Neo-Futurists experimental theatre company.

The title is a bit of a misdirection, but “definitely grabs people’s attentions,” says Ryan. “It’s a show folks – not a lot a call to action! Relax”. He assures everyone that no animals are harmed or pleasured in the making of his show. The idea was sparked after his trip to the Galapagos Islands and the tale of Lonesome George, the last Pinta Island tortoise who was given one last try to carry on his subspecies, but “at the ultimate moment, nothing materialised.”

He uses the animal anecdotes, from gay penguins and monogamous albatrosses, to boobies (the rare blue-footed Ecuadorian bird) to explore relationship experiences where gender, sexuality and dating is becoming in Ryan’s words, “increasingly fluid”. No stone is left un-humped!

His real aim is to put a human face on the topics with details about his own unconventional sex life… wearing an extremely tight, shiny, lion leotard.

“Lions are easily the most ferocious badass creatures out there and the males in particular scurry off into the forest and have 48 hour parties where they play with each other sexually”. Ryan says it’s a chance for people to work out what level of monogamy they should be at.

The show is an expedition through the often hilarious and occasionally profound sexual habits of the animal kingdom. The poster states that it is “Eddie Izzard meets David Attenborough on Grindr”. Ryan returned this year to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival after a sell out run in 2013. He won the Adelaide Fringe Best Comedy Award earlier this year and had a three week residency at Islington’s Hope Theatre in London before arriving back in the Scottish capital, where he signed this sketch. Rarrrrrrr!

Drawing: Fiona Button and Elliot Cowan in An Ideal Husband at the Vaudeville Theatre

Posted on September 6, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Lindsay Posner’s production of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband, a classic comedy of political blackmail and corruption played London’s Vaudeville Theatre during the festive season of 2010.

Wilde gave the funniest lines to Lord Arthur Goring. SOme have suggested that the character with his similar wit and fashion to be based on the playwright himself. The ‘dandy’ was portrayed by Elliot Cowan, with his fancy threads and wayward habits, which critics agreed made “a splendidly lived in hero”.

He is engaged to Miss Mabel Chiltern, who, at half his age, is play by Fiona Button, “…whose silken repartee flowed as elegantly as her skirts”.

Her line “An ideal husband! Oh, I don’t think I should like that,” sums up her innocence. Both Fiona and Elliot signed this black biro sketch amongst the snow flurries at the uncovered Vaudeville stage door.

Drawing: Cillian Murphy Stephen Rea and Mikel Murfi in Ballyturk

Posted on September 5, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Enda Walsh’s latest play Ballyturk opens on the Lyttelton stage at London’s National Theatre next week (11 September 2014) directed by the playwright for one month only. Since premiering at the Galway Arts Festival in July, it has been a sell out smash hit at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin and the Cork Opera House.

Cillian Murphy returns to the National following his electrifying solo performance in Enda’s Misterman. He is joined by the author’s long time collaborator Mikel Murfi and internationally acclaimed film and theatre actor Stephen Rea.

Michael Billington in The Guardian called it “a manic physical comedy like Under Milk Wood as interpreted by Buster Keaton”. Irish critic Fintan O’Toole simply called it “Eric and Ernie” (Cillian and Mikel) two innocent men, simply identified as one and two, who share a bed but are not lovers, in a windowless basement covered in layers of pencil drawings, in an imagined Irish no-place called Ballyturk. Character 3 (Stephen) enters the frenetic desperation on stage as a quiet, anti-climatic chain-smoking deus ex machina (this is a plot device, it’s from Latin meaning ‘go from the machine’ and is used by the writer to solve seemingly insolvable problems with a new character or event) who terrifies them!

Ballyturk is a continuation of Walsh’s last collaboration with Cillian and Mikel in Misterman. Enda said he and all three actors in mind when he wrote the piece.

All three kindly signed my sketch at the Olympia during the production’s run in mid-August.

Drawing: Colin Firth

Posted on September 4, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Colin Firth – or as a large number of his adoring female admirers like to call him, ‘Mr Darcy’ – is always accommodating with the public, myself included.

At this week’s GQ Men of the Year 2014 Awards (where he picked up the Best Leading Man gong), he ‘walked the line’ signing autographs, shaking hands and posing for pics with all who had gathered outside the Royal Opera House in London.

Colin actually played a Mr Darcy on three occasions; once in Pride and Prejudice (1995), then in Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001) and again in the sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004). But both of his Oscar nominated roles came from playing a character named ‘George’. He was George Falconer in A Single Man in 2009, and King George VI in The King’s Speech the following year for which he won the award. He often jokes about his first name “It doesn’t exactly have a ring to hit… it’s more the sort of name you’d give your goldfish for a joke.”

The ‘Mr Darcy’ label has stuck since 1995. Colin says, “he is a figure that won’t die. I can’t control him”. There was even a woman in hospital, diagnosed with high blood pressure, who was told not to watch any more Pride and Prejudice. She was 103.

I drew this sketch a couple years ago and never really intended to get it signed. I had planned to draw him on stage, but haven’t gotten around to it. As it happened, I didn’t have a Samuel L. Jackson, a Gerard Butler, a Lewis Hamilton, a Nicole Scherzinger, a Kim Kardashian or a Kanye West or a Ringo Starr (not that he’s signing these days) or an Iggy Pop drawing on me, who all passed by on their way in at the Opera House. For some reason Colin’s sketch was in my folder in my bag and it was soon in front of him. He gave a complimentary nod and signed it… Colin Firth, not ‘Mr Darcy’