Tag Archives: Soho Theatre

Drawing: Nish Kumar

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Nish Kumar

Nish Kumar is one of the funniest guys around. Even the Guardian… I think it was the Guardian, said he has sealed his place at the top table of UK comedy. His show LONG WORD …LONG WORD… BLAH BLAH BLAH … I’M SO CLEVER (yes that is the actual title) was the hottest ticket at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe and was nominated for the Best Show Award.

This month he’s taken up residency at London’s Soho Theatre. The publicity blurb describes the performance as “This is a stand-up comedy show for people who like stand-up comedy by a man that does stand-up comedy.” Succinct. It goes on to say the “depending on your opinion, the man is either ‘a comedian on the up (The Times), ‘a comedian I’ve never heard of’ (Audience Member) or ‘a very clever boy’ (Nish Kumar).

After last night’s show he was perched in the packed bar signing copies of his DVD and I was perched anywhere near him but was slowly wading through the throng and held my sharpie up indicating I was heading his way. When I showed him the sketch he probably thought ‘missed sale’ but politely said, “You’ve made me too handsome”. I apologised and he signed it.

So (Ho Ho Ho) if you’re in need of some festive cheer, pop along and catch Nish… oh and buy his DVD. Say Mark sent you.

Drawing: Tanya Moodie in Joanne

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Tanya Moodie

Olivier-nominated, Canadian-born British actress Tanya Moodie has just completed her solo run in Joanne at London’s Soho Theatre.

Joanne is never seen. She is defined by her absence and elusiveness, existing through the eyes of others, “the sort of troubled, slippery needy person it’s all too easy to ignore”.

Stella, Grace, Alice, Kath and Becky are four characters who come into contact with Joanne during the crucial 24 hour period after her release from prison plus a teacher who remembers the wrong decisions her pupil made.

Five monologues from five different dramatists – Deborah Bruce, Theresa Ikoko, Laura Lomas, Chino Odimba and Ursula Rani – with Tanya performing all roles in a powerful one hour production, commissioned by Clean Break who have, for 36 years been doing important work with women in prisons and at risk.

Critics are unanimous in their response. The Independent’s Paul Taylor summed up the reviews, “Tanya Moodie is terrific in this powerful collaboration”.

Tanya was very generous with her compliments about my drawing. She tweeted it, thanking me and returned it with a kind note. From time to time I receive thank you notes, which is not expected, but always gratefully received. One of the main reasons for doing this blog is to share with others. Many would ask “can we see more of your work” and this the best medium to do just that!

Tanya Moodie Postcard

Drawing: Number 1, The Plaza at The Soho Theatre

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1 The Plaza

Shit happens… particularly at Number 1, The Plaza, a luxury London apartment and the title of an unconventional 75 minute performance by experimental theatre duo Lucy McCormick and Jennifer Pick which ran at the Soho Theatre this spring. The pair playing narcissistic drama queens let it all hang out. It’s excrement entertainment, literally and metaphorically.

A boundary-pushing, boozy night of cabaret, live art and stand-up, promoted as a “messy musical trash-fest exploring the relationship between the two women.” Jen and Lucy perform numbers from shows such as Wicked and Blood Brothers smeared in human waste and share too much information and other stuff. It gives a whole new meaning to Dirty Dancing. 

Their production company is called Getinthebackofthevan. Need I say more. According to director Hester Chillingworth, Number 1 examines the ‘pornification’ of everyday life, a no holds-barred examination of the kind of shit that we do day to day, surrounded in ‘number 2’s. The company are known for occupying and championing the borders of things, sitting at the crossroads between a number of genres.

Critic Emma Brady described it as “a theatre experience like no other.”

For the alarmed, don’t be. The fake faeces is a mixture of gingerbread cake, chocolate and peanut butter. Ask a front row member of their audience. I was just pleased they used a conventional pen to sign my sketch… I think.

 

Drawing: Iliza Shlesinger in Freezing Hot

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iliza s soho

Thirty-two year old Texan Iliza Shlesinger has finally made her UK debut at London’s Soho Theatre, a decade after becoming the only female and youngest winner of the US talent show Last Comic Standing. Her first TV Special War Paint reached Number 1 on the American iTunes chart and her follow-up Netflix Special Freezing Hot received rave reviews. It is the latter that she is performing at the Soho until the end of August, exposing women’s best kept secrets with opinions on things from first date attire, fantasy breakups, the constant pursuit of not being cold while still looking hot to imagining life as a mermaid and the general state of her nation. TimeOut’s Danielle Goldstein wrote, “Dressed from head to toe in black, in jeans tight enough to put the ‘vagina in a chokehold’, Iliza Shlesinger commands the stage…fearlessly delivers embarrassing anecdotes we can all relate to.” ( Note: My sketch does not depict her in black from head to toe…it saves lead and possibly gets me more carbon credits.)

As I have said, laboriously, the Soho can be an awkward venue to nab the sketch subject for a siggy. With three stages, the intimate environs can become overpeopled with patrons toing and froing. In this case, I got a tad lucky. I was seated at a table near the foyer from wence Iliza would hopefully emerge from the downstairs stage. I had planned to finish my Pilsner with a few minutes to spare before strategically positioning myself in, what I call the ‘salmon spawning spot’ (you know, swimming upstream) as the audience emerged.With three sips of my beverage to go, one of the bar staff placed a reserve sign on my table ‘For Iliza, 8.30pm’ it read. Something about Mohammed and the mountain came to mind, but I quickly informed the  barman, as the crowd poured in at 8.31, that I would vacate as soon as she arrived, which she duly did and happily signed my sketch.

Drawing: Grace Savage in Blind

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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: Jade Anouka in Chef

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Jade Anouka

Rising star of British Theatre Jade Anouka has just finished a three week run of her solo show Chef at London’s Soho Theatre.

Sabrina Mahfouz’s gripping 50 minute poetic monologue about one woman who went from being a haute-cuisine head-chef to a convicted inmate running a prison kitchen made its London debut after a sensational season at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, winning the 2014 Fringe First Award.

“The combination of Mahfouz’s lyrical yet bruising writing and Anouka’s phenomenal performance is a winning one,” wrote The Guardian’s Lyn Gardner. Other critics have been equally full of praise, using adjectives such as “stunning”, “wonderful” and “extraordinary”.

I met the delightful Jade after her final matinée performance at the Soho on Saturday afternoon and she signed my sketch.

Drawing: Diane Chorley: The Duchess of Canvey

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diane chorley

This is the first time one of my drawings has been kissed! Diane Chorley, the legendary Duchess of Canvey, former owner of the celeb-magnet 80s Essex nightclub The Flick and ex-con had just finished her final performance of a two week run at London’s Soho Theatre on Saturday night.

The place was humming – inside and out – as the streets and establishments throughout Soho were fuelled with revellers after the Pride March earlier in the day.

I stood by the ticket office door for strategic and safety reasons. When Diane, sipping on a lager, came out to take in the sights (one of which was my sketch) she gasped.

“Oh babe… wow! Did you do that? Wonderful,” she signed it and inscribed it and then baptised it with a kiss and beer. Now that’s lip service. A truly unique experience and addition for the collection. Dubbed the Duchess of Canvey by David Bowie, Diane describes her life on her website as:

“I was born in Canvey on the coldest day of the year. Mum said I was steaming when I came out. She was a good woman, hands like iron files, teeth like crackling. My father was a Hodd Carrier. Silent as bread, … never said a word. Turns out he was having an affair with a chiropodist from Billericay. Mum found out and killed him. Literally… Mum got life.”

Left to look after her younger brother, Diane resorted to some drug dealing for survival. She was eventually locked up and the nightclub shut down. Her show is a mixture of music accompanied by her equally famous  band The Buffet, and comic tales recounting her troubled days of infamy and fall from grace.

I read in Time Out that in order to handle being mobbed by insatiable fans, the Soho Theatre did look at the cost of a water cannon for crowd control. It was a toss up between that and a cold spread for The Buffet and they all agreed there was less chance of the venue getting sued over a crudité platter. I was pleased about that.

Drawing: David Baddiel in Fame: Not the Musical

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david baddiel

Based on our celebrity-obsessed age, British comedian and writer David Baddiel’s solo show Fame: Not The Musical is a two hour show on the perks and perils of fame at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory last summer.

He charts celebrity’s daily experience in what The Guardian’s Brian Logan called the “unglamorous no man’s land between name-in-the-lights self-fulfilment and rabbit-caught-in-the-headlights self-destruction”.

After a 15 year absence from stand up David was tempted back by the absurdity of fame. The show stared life at the Soho Theatre as a ‘work-in-progress’ in March 2013, before taking it to the Edinburgh Fringe, various other venues and ending up at the Menier.

“Stand up is a frightening thing to do if you don’t do it for a long time, but the more you do it, the less you feel the fear” he said.

I met David last week when he returned to the Soho for a four date residency in the upstairs stage with some more intimate work-in-progress material. I said to him, “one of the absurdities of being famous is that people recognise you, draw you and ask you to sign it.” He laughed and said “obviously” and happily complied with my request. I’m not sure if it was a perk or a peril of the fame game.

Sketch: Radiant Vermin, Soho Theatre

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Radiant Vermin

Radiant Vermin is Philip Ridley’s new play about homelessness is an allegorical satire about the housing crisis that TimeOut says, “unfolds like a modern day Grimm tale” where a young couple ware prepared to go to the extremes to obtain their dream home.

Matt Trueman (WhatsOnStage) calls it a, “Thatcherite fairytale… unquestionably the more sophisticated picture of our crocked property market.”

The young couple – Olllie and Jill – played by BBC Three Pramface‘s Sean Michael Verey and Game of Thrones Gemma Whelan, are helped by Miss Dee, a modern day fairy godmother (Amanda Daniels).

Henry Hitchings said of their performances, “Fierce energy… dazzling performances.”

“The most precise, intense and breathtaking piece of performance, masterfully directed,” said The Stage critic Natasha Tripney

Radiant Vermin continues at London’s Soho Theatre until 12 April 2015 where Gemma, Sean and Amanda signed my sketch.

Sketch: Susie Essman, Soho Theatre

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Susie Essman

The Bronx-born American stand up comedian, writer and television producer Susan ‘Susie’ Essman was back by popular demand at London’s Soho Theatre following her smash hit sell out run in 2013.

She is no shrinking violet and is liberal with the vernacular invectives on stage and screen. The LA Times said Susie is “The most lyrical purveyor of profanity on television. She makes the entire cast of The Sopranos look like rank amateurs. It is really a gift.”

Susie is best known for her role as the Sassy Susie Green on the groundbreaking critically acclaimed HBO comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm and the character’s hilarious bouts of withering sarcasm and uninhibited insults, including her catchphrase, “you fat f*ck!”

British critic Dominic Cavendish said Susie is “funny, frank and fearless”. She described Downton Abbey as “a piece of sh*t”.

It was great to meet Susie and her husband Jim after the first of her three night gigs at the Soho Theatre where she signed this sketch. I am pleased to say that in person she is the exact opposite of her TV namesake and stand up persona.