Sketch: Eleanor Matsuura in Bull at The Young Vic

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Tokyo-born and London raised actress Eleanor Matsuura is currently appearing as the determined Isobel in Clare Lizzimore’s riveting production of Mike Bartlett’s razor-sharp Bull at the Young Vic in London.

The play looks at the fine line between office politics and playground bullying as three employees fight to keep their jobs in a corporate wrestling ring.

It’s nasty, it’s brutish, it’s short – a 55 minute exercise that provides catharsis for theatregoers who want to purge the day’s tensions by watching a metaphoric version of what may be happening during regular office hours.

I drew this montage of Eleanor including her role in Enron at the Noel Coward Theatre, which she signed for me after two rounds in the ‘ring’ (a matinee and evening performance) on Wednesday.

Drawing: Charlotte Lucas, Jessica Raine and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith in The Changeling at The Young Vic Theatre

Posted on October 9, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Jessica Raine and Charlotte Lucas featured in the sell out hit The Changeling at London’s Young Vic, helmed by the Theatres’ Deputy Artistic Director Joe Hill-Gibbings in early 2012. Described as a ‘darkly comic tale of sex, love and panic’ this was a modern-dress revival of Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s 1622 classic which was originally set in Renaissance Spain. One reviewer called it “The Changeling supercharged – urgent, sexy and messy.”

It’s focus is the doomed romance between Alsemero, a nobleman and Beatrice-Joanna’s impending marriage to another man, until she finds a solution… which has deadly consequences. Jessica described her character in three words “clever, lusty and murderous”.

Her maid, Diaphanta (Charlotte) performs the bedroom trick, and stands in for Beatrice (Jessica) in a highly lubricious and well-lubricated spectacle in which a blindfolded Kobna Holdbrook-Smith and Charlotte smear themselves with jelly!

Drawing: Edward Petherbridge in My Perfect Mind at The Young Vic Theatre

Posted on September 27, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The Guardian labelled the two man show My Perfect Mind, “an exquisite piece of tomfoolery”. Performed by Paul Hunter and Olivier Award winner Edward Petherbridge, it has just finished a four week run at London’s Young Vic as part of a UK tour. It is inspired by Edward’s experience of not playing Lear.

In 2007, Edward travelled to Wellington in New Zealand to fulfil his long cherished ambition to play Shakespeare’s King Lear. Two days into rehearsal he suffered a stroke that left him partially paralysed. Remarkably, he was still able to remember every world of the mad monarch.

It’s played on a disorientating tilted stage in a world that’s off kilter and difficult to physically negotiate. The title is from Lear’s most chilling line “I fear I am not in my perfect mind”. It is a very funny piece mixed with the fact that we are all heading, like Lear, towards our own private struggle sot maintain perfect mind.

It’s a show that invokes the ghosts of Petherbridge’s childhood, the ghosts of all those actors who have played Lear and the ghost of the performance that Edward never got to give.

Paul plays a variety of characters who have figured in Petherbridge’s life, including Lord Olivier, the actor’s mother (herself a stroke victim) and the Fool to his Lear. He signed my sketch going in, but I missed Edward. Waiting at the lower stage door, (the Young Vic has at least two) I missed him again after the performance. He and left via the upper stage door since the play is performed in the upper auditorium. Paul told me he was eating at an Italian restaurant over the road and assured me he wouldn’t mind the intrusion.

It’s not my usual practice, stalking people when they are eating, but, more in my left mind I did. I apologised. “You expected the entrée, not a fool with a drawing”. He graciously signed it, while I kept apologising to him and his companions.

Tim Walker in his five star review in The Telegraph said of Edward, “… has acquired a tremendous sense of majesty that makes him a magnetic stage presence: I sincerely hope he may yet get to play Lear and deliver the lines that remain so stubbornly in his head”…. or at least finish his post-show Italian dinner without interruption by a theatrical scribbler.

Drawing: Gillian Anderson in A Doll’s House at The Young Vic Theatre

Posted on August 1, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Kfir Yefet’s staging of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House played London’s Donmar Warehouse through the summer of 2009. I’ve been carrying this sketch around with me ever since. Well, not this specific sketch and not ever since. I originally did another one which I carried arouond with me, hoping to get Gillian to sign it since I missed her at the theatre (note to self: never leave signings to the last performance). Gillian was a regular at screenings, premieres, film festivals and press nights, so I carried the sketch just in case. When I didn’t have the sketch, Gillian would make an appearance. In the end I mailed it to her via her agent and re-drew this one, which I have carried around ever since (and when I haven’t, déja vu!)

My chance came last night. Gillian has returned to the London stage to rave reviews as Blanche Dubois in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire at the Young Vic. He opened this week after a short preview season. It’s a long play which can be a help or a hinderance for ‘graphing. After three and a half hours of “shatteringly powerful” performing I guess the last thing she would want to do is meet, greet and ‘graph with the gathered throng.

Normally at the Young Vic I position myself near the interior stage door that opens out onto The Cut Bar, but the two security persons (first time I’ve seen that at the Young Vic) corral to a line near the ticket desk. It’s well after 11pm, so the bar’s closing. “Programmes and tickets only,” one of the security guys told the handful of people waiting.

“Ms Anderson will only be signing programmes or tickets, so don’t offend her by offering anything else.”

Gillian popped down and stood behind the ticket desk and started signing. I waited until everyone had finisihed then approached her, apologising that I didn’t have a programme or a ticket, but a sketch from 2009, which I showed her and asked if she could sign it “to Mark”. She looked at it, smiled and said, “is that with a ‘c’ or a ‘k’?”

“A ‘k’,” I replied, and left thanking the security on my way out to catch the last train.

Drawing: Mark Strong, Nicola Walker and Phoebe Fox in A View From The Bridge at The Young Vic

Posted on June 12, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The Telegraph’s Charles Spencer gave the Young Vic’s recent production of A View From The Bridge five stars, stating, “this superb production of Arthur Miller’s modern classic, A View From The Bridge is one of the most powerful Miller productions (he) has ever seen.” He was not the only critic to award a five star rating.

The story of Brooklyn longshore man Eddie Carbone’s pride and unhealthy obsession with his niece leads him towards betrayal of his family and his community. Mark Strong, Nicola Walker and Phoebe Fox all excel according to The Guardian.

As Mark put it, “it’s… stark and bare and brutal” on an almost bare stage, similar to a minimalist art gallery. According to Spencer, he plays one of the greatest roles in modern drama, with “raw pain, inarticulate passion and emotional and physical violence. His eyes in Miller’s phrase, really like tunnels, a thousand mile stare of loss, dread and sexual confusion.”

A View From The Bridge finished its season on 7 June 2014.

Drawing: Jane Horrocks

Posted on December 2, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Jane Horrocks is probably best known as ‘Bubble’ in the TV series Absolutely Fabulous and her distinctive voice with its strong Lancashire accents. She is also an acclaimed stage actress. While appearing in Road, directed by Jim Cartwright, she would warm up by doing singing impressions of Judy Garland, Shirley Bassey and Ethel Merman.

Impressed by her mimicry, he wrote The Rise and Fall of Little Voice for her. She was nominated for an Olivier Award in 1992 for her performance, directed by then boyfriend Sam Mendes. She reprised the role for the 1998 screen adaption Little Voice, which also earned her nominations for a Golden Globe, BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild Award.

Jane kindly signed by sketch at the Young Vic stage door, where she was starring in the title role in Annie Get Your Gun in December 2009.

Drawing: Kyle Soller in A Long Day’s Journey Into Night at the Apollo Theatre

Posted on November 30, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Kyle Soller is an American actor, living in London having graduated from RADA in 2008. His breakthrough year was in 2011 when he won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Newcomer for stellar performances in The Glass Menagerie and The Government Inspector, both at the Young Vic and The Faith Machine at the Royal Court.

In 2012 he performed the role of Edmund in Eugene O’Neill’s harrowing autobiographical play A Long Day’s Journey Into Night at the Apollo Theatre with David Suchet and Laurie Metcalf. The sketch is based on that character and he signed it for me at the theatre. Kyle is currently appearing in Marlowe’s Edward II at the National.

Drawing: Chiwetel Ejiofor

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Many say Chiwetel Ejiofor is “one of the best British actors of his generation”.

He has been recognised by the British Academy and Hollywood’s Foreign Press with BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations. Word is he may ad an Oscar nod to that impressive collection.

He had to leave his studies at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts after one year for a role in Stephen Spielberg’s Amistad. Not a bad foundation to launch a career that includes Love Actually, American Gangster and Dirty Pretty Things. Rumour has it he even turned down the role of Dr Who, with Matt Smith becoming the 11th Time Lord in 2009.

He is currently headlining Joe Wright’s sold out production of Aimé Cesaire’s A Season in the Congo at London’s Young Vic. He plays Patrice Lumumba – “a beer salesman who became the first democratically elected Prime Minister of the Congo in June 1960. Seven days later the country gains independence from Belgian colonial rule. By January 1961. Lumumba was dead – executed in murky circumstances, involving Congolese dissenters and foreign powers. It’s a “decolonisation drama”chronicling a vibrant nation’s turbulent first years of freedom.

It marks Chiwetel’s return to the boards since he reprised his role as Othello (previously at the Bloomsbury Theatre in 1995) at the Donmar Warehouse with Ewan McGregor as Iago in 2007. Chiwetel won the Olivier Award for his performance.

His latest film 12 Years A Slave has attracted Oscar buzz. The historical drama, directed by Steve McQueen, is based on the autobiography of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was kidnapped in Washington DC in 1841 and sold into slavery for 12 years. Brad Pitt plays his part as well – producing and acting in the film.

Chiwetel signed my sketch at the Young Vic last Thursday before the evening performance.

Drawing: The Beauty Queen of Leenane at The Young Vic

Posted on June 21, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Martin McDonagh’s acclaimed comedy The Cripple of Inishmaan is currently running at the Noel Coward Theatre as a part of Michael Grandage’s five play season with the with the wizard himself, Daniel Radcliffe.

McDonagh’s earlier play The Beauty Queen of Leenane – a black comedy set in a village in County Galway, revolving around a plain, lonely woman in her forties with her first and possibly final chance at love and her manipulative mother who sets about to derail it.

It premiered in 1996 in Galway, then transferred to London’s Royal Court Theatre before an extensive National tour of Ireland, then returning to London’s West End at the Duke of York’s in November 1996. In 1998 it opened off-Broadway, receiving six Tony nominations and winning four.

The play was revived at The Young Vic in London. The excellent cast – Derbhle Crotty, Rosaleen Linehan, Frank Laverty and Johnny Ward all gladly signed my sketch after I saw the afternoon matinée on 31 August 2011

Drawing: Michael Sheen in Hamlet

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Michael Sheen’s performance as the Great Dane in Ian Rickson’s controversial production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet was described by critics as ‘bonkers and brilliant’. The bard’s longest and most famous play was set in a mental institution.

Michael is one of the nicest people in entertainment and was very generous with his compliments and time as he signed my sketch in the Cut Bar at the Young Vic Theatre in November 2011.