Sketch: Penelope Wilton in Taken At Midnight, Theatre Royal Haymarket

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

penelope wilton

Returning to the West End after a five year absence, Downton Abbey star Penelope Wilton reprised her role as Irmgard Litten in Taken at Midnight when it transferred to the Theatre Royal Haymarket from a sold out season in Chichester last month.

Putting maternal love on centre stage, Mark Hayhurst’s 2014 play is based on the life of the young German Jewish lawyer Hans Litten who’s brilliant cross examination of Adolf Hitler in the trial of a band of murderous SA men in 1931 led to his arrest by the Nazis in 1933.

The play explores Irmgard’s five year struggle to secure her son’s release. The Guardian said, “Gripping, Penelope Wilton shines in Mark Hayhurst’s deeply engrossing drama about the high price of resisting tyranny.”

Penelope has been nominated for six Olivier Awards, including this year’s shortlist for her “profoundly moving performance” (The Sunday Times) as Litten’s mother.

Sketch: John Light in Taken at Midnight at Theatre Royal Haymarket

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

John Light

British actor John Light has been nominated for a Supporting Actor Olivier Award for his role as a Gestapo officer. Jonathan Church’s world premiere production of Taken at Midnight, the new play by documentary film maker Mark Hayhurst, was first staged as part of the Chichester Festival Theatre’s Hidden Histories Season.

It’s the extraordinary story of a young Jewish lawyer Hans Litten who subpoenaed Hitler to appear as a witness in a criminal trial in 1931. he was taken into “protective custody” and sent to Sonnenburg Concentration Camp. The play focusses on the attempts of Litten’s mother (Penelope Wilton) to confront the Gestapo and rescue her son from his inevitable fate.

After it’s success in Chichester, the production transferred to the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in London’s West End for a limited run which ended last weekend.

The New York Times correspondent Matt Wolf said “Mr Light is suavely chilling in the part” of Dr Conrad, the Nazi official who plays down the severity of Litten’s fate even though he knows the atrocities that await. Hans Litten died in Dachau in 1938, at the age of 34.

Drawing: Sheridan Smith in Flare Path at Theatre Royal Haymarket

Posted on October 30, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

In 2011 Trevor Nunn directed a West End revival of Terrance Rattigan’s Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket as part of the playwright’s centenary year celebrations.

The story involves a love triangle between a pilot, his actress wife and a famous film star set in a hotel near an RAF Bomber Command airbase during WWII.

Universally acclaimed by the critics as a superb production, the were equally in agreement that Sheridan Smith stole the show. A major subplot involves her character Doris, a former barmaid who is married to and totally devoted to a Polish Count flying with the RAF.

She has the rare claim of winning Olivier Awards two years running followed by a BAFTA. Her second Olivier won for Flare Path. Sheridan is always generous with her time at the stage door where she signed this black biro sketch.

Drawing: Anna Friel and Joseph Cross in Breakfast at Tiffany’s at Theatre Royal Haymarket

Posted on October 15, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

One of the most anticipated productions of 2009 was the stage version of Breakfast at Tiffany’s at London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket, featuring Anna Friel as Holly Golightly and Joseph Cross as her neighbour William Parsons. It was the role that established Audrey Hepburn as a glamour icon and arguably Capote’s most famous character.

He wanted Marilyn Monroe for the 1961 Hollywood film, and hated Hepburn in the part. In fact, he hated the whole film. He called it, “a mawkish Valentine to New York City… thin and pretty where as it should have been rich and ugly!” The stage version is considered a closer adaption of the book.

The Telegraph’s Charles Spencer gave the production four stars. “This is the sexiest performance I have seen on stage since Nicole Kidman in The Blue Room… Friel creates a thrilling frisson of eroticism.”

The production opened on the 29th of September, concluding on 9th January 2010. Both Anna and Joseph signed my quick black biro sketch in the final week.

Drawings: Ian McKellen and Simon Callow in Waiting for Godot at Theatre Royal Haymarket

Posted on December 11, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Following on from yesterday’s Pickup Lines, I also produced sketches of the other main characters from Samuel Beckett’s absurdist tragicomedy Waiting for Godot in a similar ‘elemental’ style – like the play itself.

Sir Ian McKellen as Estragon and Simon Callow as Pozzo also signed their respective renderings at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in August 2009.

Drawing: Ronald Pickup in Waiting For Godot at Theatre Royal Haymarket

Posted on December 10, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Distinguished thespian Ronald Pickup worked with Sir Laurence Olivier at the National, namely Three Sisters and Long Day’s Journey Into Night, and was nominated for an Olivier Award in 1998 for his supporting role in Amy’s View.

He played the role of ‘Lucky’ alongside Ian Mckellen, Patrick Stewart and Simon Callow in Sean Mathias production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot at London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket. He signed my sketch after I was lucky enough to see a Saturday matinée in August 2009.

Drawing: Joanna Lumley

Posted on June 2, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Joanna Lumley signed this quick portrait at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in January 2012 during her The Lion in Winter season

Drawing: Sienna Miller and Terrance Rattigan in Flare Path

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Sienna Miller signed my Comic Relief sketch at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in April 2011 when she was performing in Terrance Rattigan’s wartime play Flare Path.