Tag Archives: sketch

Drawing: John Hopkins in Holy Warriors

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John Hopkins Holy Warriors

I am an unashamed fan of the British TV series MIDSOMER MURDERS. John Hopkins featured in 14 episodes as DS Daniel Scott, sidekick to John Nettles’ DCI Tom Barnaby. After leaving the show he returned to the stage. One of his recent theatrical appearances was in the critically acclaimed HOLY WARRIORS at Shakespeare’s Globe last year.

The David Eldridge play centres on Richard I’s Third Crusade against Saladin over the possession of Jerusalem, the medieval clash between Christianity and Islam that has lead to a direct line to the violence still engulfing the Middle East today. Richard is one of the few English Kings that is still known by his epithet – Richard the Lionheart, rather than his Regnal number. He had an ignominious ending, killed while laughing at a defender of a castle he was besieging who was using a frying pan as a makeshift shield.

John played the ‘Coeur de Lion’, receiving excellent reviews.

I drew this sketch of John as Richard, which gave me the chance to meet him last Saturday at London’s Tricycle Theatre where he is currently featuring in the hilarious spoof BEN HUR. He happily signed this drawing, while we discussed the general state of the world and… MIDSOMER MURDERS.

Drawing: Ben Forster and Kimberley Walsh in ‘Elf The Musical’

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Elf

A sense of deja vu prevailled as I waited for Ben Forster to emerge from the Dominion Theatre’s stage door after a matinee performance as Buddy in ELF THE MUSICAL. Based on the popular 2003 film. The production premiered on Broadway during the festive season of 2010-11 before it’s 2014 UK debut in Plymouth with Ben in the lead role, reprising it for the west end transfer.

One of theatre’s genuinely nice guys, Ben has been the subject of a number of my sketches. Last year I was standing in the same spot for him to emerge from another matinee, this time playing Magaldi in EVITA. The usual band of admirers were waiting, probably the same people on both occasions. After the ritual selfies with them, or in this case ‘elfie’ (sorry) Ben signed the drawing with his usual kind compliments. I asked him what he was doing next and he said “Phantom.” “The masked man himself?” I quipped  and he confirmed he will  take on the title role across town at Her Majesty’s from early February.

Playing opposite Ben as Jovie was pop star Kimberley Walsh from ‘Girl’s Aloud” fame, who was also included in my sketch. I had to return another day to get her to sign it because, as Ben explained, with a young baby she needed all the rest she can get so didn’t come out between shows. However the night returned it rained and my untrustworthy umbrella lived up to it’s status. That didn’t deter Kimberly, who signed through the drops with the spirit-based sharpie which slipped over the damp paper without a smudge.

Drawing: Ben Hur at the Tricycle Theatre

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Ben Hur

The William Wyler 1959 blockbuster BEN HUR won 11 Oscars with a cast of thousands, including 10.000 extras, 365 speaking parts, 2,500 horses, a swelling score, the entire Roman Empire, chariot racing, sea battles, a galley of half-naked slaves, glistening torsos, Charlton Heston, did I mention the Roman Empir…oh yes I did. Tim Carroll’s production is a more modest version, not quite the biblical proportions of the original epic, but has kept some elements and a cast of….ur …four. But an excellent one  at that.The energetic quartet playing  hapless fictional thesps, staging the show are John Hopkins, Ben Jones, Richard Durden and Alix Dunmore who endlessly recycle themselves into various characters.

I remember seeing John in the ‘superlatively skewered’ Hitchcock spy spoof THE 39 STEPS a few years ago. The hit show, which was described as one of the best things to come out of the West End in the last decade, played London’s Criterion Theatre for nine years, winning multiple awards and is currently on a National Tour.

The very same playwright, Patrick Barlow is responsible for this pocket-sized, ‘redux maximus’ adaption, which began life in 2012 at The Watermill Theatre in Newbury, and has been subject to numerous rewrites since. The latest version is currently being staged at the Tricycle Theatre in North London.

“The thing with bad comedy is that it needs, paradoxically, to be really good indeed to be funny and this is very funny”, declared Jane Shilling in The Telegraph. She says ‘The jokes are signalled from so far off that when they arrive, you greet them like old friends.” Fiona Mountford in the Evening Standard decreed it “a palpable hit.”

I drew this sketch of John, Richard and Alix from the promo poster. It’s probably not right that Ben is missing from a BEN HUR drawing, so I will have to do a separate one and return. I caught up with them after last Saturday’s matinee and got the sketch signed.

It runs until 9 January at the Tricycle, although John said that it may transfer to the West End.

Drawing: Andrew Scott, David Dawson and Joanna Vanderham in The Dazzle

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The Dazzle

The top floor of the derelict Central St Martins School of Art on London’s Charing Cross road is an intriguing space and home to the fledgling theatre venue called Found 111. It’s the site-specific for the UK debut of Tony-winner Richard Greenberg’s THE DAZZLE, the  American Gothic story of the real-life Collyer Brothers whose retreat from society to their Fifth Avenue Harlem apartment along with 136 ton of junk including 14 grand pianos.

The reclusive eccentrics and compulsive hoarders made national headlines when their dead bodies were found under sordid, booby-trapped piles of clutter in 1947. Their ‘folie a deux’ has a name – disposophobia – a fear of getting rid of stuff, known as the ‘hoarding disorder’.

SHERLOCK and SPECTRE star, Andrew Scott  and LUTHER and RIPPER STREET’s David Dawson play Langley and Homer respectively. They are joined by Joanna Vanderham from TV’s BANISHED, as Milly, the beautiful guest whose arrival throws their lives into sharp focus. Michael Billington from The Guardian described the performances, “Both actors are hypnotic and the exquisite Joanna Vanderham radiates a damaged sensuality.”

The season, which finishes at the end of this month is sold out, but returns are available resulting in a daily queue running the length of the frontage and beyond. It’s also on one of London’s busiest pedestrian routes, so one has to be on one’s guard to get one’s drawing signed by the three cast members going in. This is the reason it took me two days to achieve the three graphs on one’s sketch.

Drawing: Jim Broadbent as Scrooge

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Jim Broadbent

Jim Broadbent, one of Britain’s finest character actors, has returned to the London stage as the seasonal skinflint Scrooge in a new adaption by Patrick Barlow of Dickens’ classic A CHRISTMAS CAROL at the Noel Coward Theatre.

Last seen in THEATRE OF BLOOD at the National, a decade ago, the multi-award-winning actor’s portrayal of Scrooge is more high-spirited than mean-spirited, played with a ‘permanent twinkle in his eye’.

It’s New Year’s honours time and I was reminded of when Jim declined an OBE in 2002, after winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as British critic and writer John Bayley in IRIS. He stated that there were more deserving recipients than actors and the British Empire was not something he wanted to celebrate. But he didn’t decline to sign my sketch and, as usual was very gracious at the stage door.

Drawing: Sofie Hagen in Bubblewrap

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Bubblewrap
Sofie Hagen’s intro on her website reads, ‘Welcome to my website. If you don’t know me, I’m a Danish stand-up comedian, writer and extraordinarily nice person.’ All true. The 27 year old, Copengagen-born, London-based comic made an impressive debut at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, winning the Best Newcomer Award with BUBBLEWRAP, an engrossing, entertaining and candid romp through her life that had its foundations in a teenage obsession with Irish boy-band Westlife.
It touches on the themes such as body issues, mental health and feminism, that have become de rigueur in contemporary comedy, dragging the once taboo into the mainstream. The Guardian described her as having “an easy charm and an ability to combine delicate subject matter with accessible laughs.” It was early last year that she had her ‘awakening’, where her long-held insecurities faded away and she finally learned to accept what she thought were flaws and love herself for all her quirks. She said she  became a happier person and a better comedian. Her epiphany came when a man asked her to urinate on him during sex in the shower. I believe social anthropologists would include Sofie in what they have termed ‘generation overshare’.
This month Sofie bought BUBBLEWRAP to London’s Soho Theatre, where I caught up with the ‘extraordinarily nice person’ after Monday evening’s show. The audience clearly enjoyed it. One woman remarked that she was very brave, dealing with the difficult themes. Dealing with stalking, signature-hunting, scribblers may be added to that list, but since she stated that, “comedy is the one thing that makes sense in her life” I was confident she would see the funny side and happily sign the sketch. I was right.

Drawing: MyAnna Buring and Laura Donnelly in The Wasp

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The Wasp

The Tarantula Hawk is a wasp that lays an egg in a spider’s abdomen, hatching a larvae that feeds on the arachnid’s innards avoiding the vital organs to ensure they remain a living host until it is ready to emerge. It is reference to Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s electric triller THE WASP, which has transferred to the Trafalgar Studio’s intimate 100-seater number 2 space after a sell-out season at the Hampstead Theatre earlier this year.

MyAnna Buring reprises the role of Carla and replacing Sinead Matthews is Laura Donnelly as Heather. Two women who haven’t seen each other since school. The rough Carla is married to a man thirty years her senior and heavily pregnant with her fifth child. Heather is glamorous, successful and happily married. It asks in 90 minutes with two plot twists and a ‘gobsmaking ending’, how far beyond the playground we carry our childhood experiences and how people are willing to go in order to come to terms with them.

“A taunt, brilliantly calibrated two-handed, which takes pleasure in shocking its audience” wrote The Stage’s Natasha Tripney in her four-star review. I met MyAnna and Laura as they emerged from the Trafalgar Studios stage door to an unseasonably mild winter’s evening and both signed my sketch, adding some kind comments.

Drawing: Ilie Nastase

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Ilie Nastase

I had always wanted to meet Romanian tennis legend Ilie Nastase and naturally collect his autograph. An opportunity presented itself at this year’s ATP World Tour Finals in London’s 02 Arena last month. Nicknamed ‘Nasty’, he was anything but, in fact he was one of the nicest sportsmen I have met. Ilie was a special guest  of the ATP at this year’s event and as a four-time winner they had named a singles pool after him.

One of the most naturally gifted players in the history of the sport and known as a ‘tennis magician’ because of his ‘racket  sorcery’, he was also renowned for his ability to entertain. “l had a reputation for misbehaving on court, but I did it with humour and a smile.” he said. Ilie was one of the dominate players of the 1970’s rising to Number 1 in 1973.

He is one of only five players to have won more than 100 ATP professional titles including the French and US singles crowns and reached the Wimbledon final twice, losing to Stan Smith in a tight five-setter in 1972 (a match he considers his finest) and Bjorn Borg in 1976.

My two-pronged mission was to continue the arduous task of getting my World #1’s book graphed and if possible a sketch. I drew this one quickly and was going to do another with a bit more effort but ran out of time. Besides it had a ‘free energy’ about the lines which seemed appropriate given the subject. As a veteran of this annual year-ending event I knew the right spot to position myself and when he arrived on the final Saturday with his daughters he took the time to complete my mission… with humour and a smile.

Drawing: Alessandra Ferri and Herman Cornejo

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Alexandra and Herman

Italian Prima Donna Alessandra Ferri returned to the Royal Opera House in October this year at the age of 52. She was joined by Argentine and Principal of the American Ballet Theatre Herman Cornejo to perform acclaimed American choreographer Martha Clarke’s CHERI at the Linbury Studio.

Based on the novels of Colette it tells the tale of a doomed love affair between a woman and a man half her age. This is a sketch of them both in rehearsal which they both signed for me. Alessandra also signed another one, which I posted earlier. Dancers are such great drawing subjects!

Drawing: Hannah Boyde in Fuenteovejuna

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Hannah Boyde

One of the great things about theatre in London is the myriad of small spaces where independent productions are performed. One such place is the CLF Arts Centre in Peckham where Daniel Goldman’s Tangram company staged a ‘rapturous re-interpretation of one of Spain’s classics’, FUENTEOVEJUNA in the heat of the summer of 2013. Written in 1619 by the country’s most celebrated playwright of the time, Lope de Vega it is based on a true chronicle of a small village by the same name that is oppressed by an evil Comendador. On entering the theatre the audience immediately becomes part of the town as its ‘new members.’

My wife and I joined the membership one sunny Sunday afternoon. Playing the mayor’s daughter and resisting the tyrant’s advances was the accomplished Hannah Boyde, who’s theatre credits includes the National’s WAR HORSE. I drew this sketch of her in the role at the time, which she actually signed a year later when she appeared in Daniel’s production of THE DRAGON at the Southwark Playhouse, this time playing a Mayor.