Sketch: Bomber’s Moon at Trafalgar Studios

Posted on May 9, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Bomber's Moon

“One of the funniest and most touching moments to be seen on the current London stage… it’s a masterpiece” said The Stage about William Ivory’s Bomber’s Moon which is playing at London’s Trafalgar Studios until 23 May. Direct from a critically acclaimed run at the Park Theatre, this cross-generational two hander is directed by Matt Aston.

James Bolam plays ailing former RAF gunner Jimmy, living in a nursing home and Steve John Shepherd is his new care assistant David. Both have been through the wars. One is fighting the battle of infirmity and the injustices of ageing, the other is desperate to lay to rest the past and build a new further. Both are fighting for a lasting peace.

Thankfully James was the complete opposite to his cantankerous character and really liked the sketch but I missed Steve on the first attempt because he used the front door.

Being in two places at the same time would certainly be an advantage in this business. Still, I was in the right place the next day after a matinee and Steve completed the mission.

Sketch: Tracie Bennett in End Of The Rainbow

Posted on April 29, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Tracie Bennet Over The Rainbow

There was huge critical acclaim for double Olivier Award winning actress Tracie Bennett’s virtuoso turn in the lead role of Peter Quilter’s musical drama End Of the Rainbow, which focuses on the final chapter of Judy Garland’s life. It premiered in Sydney in 2005 before West End and Broadway transfers.

The London production, which enjoyed an extended run at the Trafalgar Studio from November 2010 to May 2011, received four Olivier Award nominations including Best Actress for Tracie. The show opened on Broadway at the Belasco Theater in March 2012 with Tracie receiving the lead role and earning a Tony nomination as well as winning the Outer Critics’ Circle and Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Actress in a Play.

I met the engaging Tracie at the 2011 Oliviers at Covent Garden where she signed a ‘Judy’ sketch for me, which I’ve already posted. This one is a montage from the play, depicting the darker side of the role as Judy Garland battled with her drug and alcohol addiction during her final tour of the UK in 1969.

I left it at the Trafalgar Studios and obviously Tracie struggled to find a pen with ample ink. That’s another one of the risks you take when not getting the ‘graph in person – you don’t get to choose the weapon! But, she not only signed it, she sent me a nice card as well. Thanks, Tracie.

Tracie Bennett Thank You

Sketch: Ron Cook in The Ruling Class at Trafalgar Studios

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Ron Cook

The versatile English actor Ron Cook has been a stalwart of theatre, film and television since the 1970’s. He may not be a household name but will be instantly recognisable to global audiences in all three mediums. Ron has appeared in most of the popular British TV shows, including DOCTOR WHO, BERGERAC, MIDSOMMER MURDERS, THE SINGING DETECTIVE and can be currently seen as Mr Crabb the accountant in the ITV series MR SELFRIDGE. He has actually played Napoleon Bonaparte twice, in a guest appearance in SHARPE and in the feature film QUILLS – one of Ron’s 54 movies, which also includes THE COOK (appropriately), THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER, SECRETS & LIES and TOPSY-TURVY. A highlight of Ron’s extensive theatre work was an Olivier Award Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role in JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK at the Donmar Warehouse. He can now be seen on the London stage as Sir Charles Gurney in the first revival of Peter Barnes’s social satire THE RULING CLASS at the Trafalgar Studios, where he signed this sketch.

Sketch: Guy Paul and Harriet Walter in Boa at Trafalgar Studios

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

One of Britain’s greatest actresses, Olivier Award-winner, Dame Harriet Walter and her husband, American Broadway actor Guy Paul perform together for the first time in Clare Brennan’s tender two-hander BOA in one of London’s most intimate spaces at the Trafalgar Studios. The one and a half hour play is an honest account of a husband and wife, whose relationship spans thirty years of love, laughter, addiction and warfare. A large snake appears on the publicity material, but thankfully only metaphorically on stage. ‘Boa’ is the nickname of Harriet’s character Belinda. It relates on a number of levels, including her resemblence to the nocturnal snake and her passionate volatility as a heavy drinker described as ‘severe and slippery’.

“Sometimes her arm around your shoulders felt like a feather boa, and sometimes it felt like a big old snake squeezing the life out of you. I liked it.”

BOA runs for a strictly limited 5 week season at the 98 seat Trafalgar Studio 2, finishing on 7 March.

Sketch: James McAvoy in The Ruling Class at Trafalgar Studios

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

BAFTA wining actor James McAvoy returns to London’s Trafalgar Studios in the madcap revival of Peter Barne’s zany 1968 black comedy The Ruling Class, directed by Jamie Lloyd. It closes the second season of ‘Trafalgar Transformed’ at the Whitehall venue.

It’s an attack on the establishment in all its forms – aristocracy, public school, the church, the military. James plays Jack, the 14th Earl of Gurney and the dodgy offspring of a toff who inherits a peerage when his father topped himself while playing a sex-hanging game in a tutu.

Jack is a paranoid schizophrenic who believes he is Jesus Christ after an epiphany at a public urinal in East Acton.

“How do you know you are God?” he is asked.

“Simple” he replies. “When I pray to him, I find I am talking to myself.”

However, the mock messiah’s family scheme against him so he has to prove some sanity to keep the inheritance, fitting in with his peers to become the “right sort of mad”.

The Guardian’s Susannah Clapp describes James’ performance as “eel-like protean, with a mephistophelean charm” (note to readers, Mephistopheles was a demon in German folklore). “He’s just fascinating, brilliantly weird,” said Time Out.

The Ruling Class runs until 11 April 2015.

Drawing, Gina McKee in Richard III at Trafalgar Studios

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

BAFTA winning British actress Gina McKee is currently starring opposite Martin Freeman in Richard III at London’s Trafalgar Studios. She made her Hampstead Theatre debut in early 2013 playing Viv alongside Anna Maxwell Martin and Tamzin Outhwaite in Amelia Bullmore’s comedy Di and Viv and Rose. It dealt with the vagaries of friendship among a group of co-habitating women – three students at a northern university in the early 1980s.

In 2010 she appeared as Goneril in King Lear at the Donmar Warehouse with Derek Jacobi and directed by Michael Grandage. She received an Olivier nomination for her performance.

This year she reunited with director Jamie Lloyd to play Queen Elizabeth in Richard III at the Trafalgar Studios, whre she signed my sketch this week. The play runs until 27 September 2014.

Drawing: Jonathan Pryce in The Caretaker at Trafalgar Studios

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Welsh actor Jonathan Pryce is equally at home on screen and stage. Critically lauded for his versatility, Jonathan’s breakthrough film performance was in Terry Gilliam’s 1985 cult film Brazil. Five years earlier he won the Olivier Award for his title role in the Royal Court’s production of Hamlet. In his Broadway debut he won the Tony for Comedians in 1997. He collected his second Olivier and Tony for playing the engineer in Miss Saigon.

Jonathan’s filmography includes The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man’s Chest, Evita, Glengarry Glen Ross, Tomorrow Never Dies and Carrington, for which he won the Best Actor award at Cannes. Jonathan was also nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his role as Henry Kravis in the 1993 television film Barbarians At The Gate.

While starring in the National’s My Fair Lady his co-star Martine McCutcheon was so frequently absent that he made an appeal form the stage for any member of the audience who fancied playing Eliza to make themselves known.

In 2010 he played Davies, the loquacious tramp in Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker at the Trafalgar Studios in London. It transferred from an initial run at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre. He had previously appeared in the National Theatre’s 1981 production of the play in the role of Mick, the dangerous young hustler. “It’s one of those plays you graduate through in the course of your life,” Jonathan was quoted.

Drawing: Meera Syal in Shirley Valentine at Trafalgar Studios

Posted on March 20, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

British actress,comedian,writer,singer and producer Meera Syal transformed herself into SHIRLEY VALENTINE at London’s Trafalgar Studios in July 2010. Written by Willy Russell,it follows the monologue of a middle aged Liverpool housewife who finds herself talking to walls as she prepares her husband’s egg’n chips,wondering where her life has gone. Critic Peter Brown said her performance was ” totally absorbing..keeping the entire audience rivited throughout.” Meera signed my sketch on 29.7.10 at the stage door.

Drawing: Three Days in May with Warren Clarke, Jeremy Clyde and Robert Demeger at Trafalgar Studios

Posted on February 5, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Three Days in May is Ben Brown’s gripping and fascinating portrayal of the three most pivotal days in British history when giving in to Hitler was considered. In the late spring of 1940 when the new PM, Winston Churchill was wrestling with a divided war cabinet in which Lord Halifax and Neville Chamberlain seemed to favour negotiated peace – “jaw-jaw instead of war-war” as Churchill put it.

After a national tour, it arrived at London’s Trafalgar Studios in the spring of 2012. The three principals – Warren Clarke (Churchill), Jeremy Clyde (Halifax) and Robert Demeger (Chamberlain) signed my sketch instead of a peace treaty with Nazi Germany…

Drawing: Lesley Manville in Ghosts at Trafalgar Studios

Posted on December 28, 2013 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Director Richard Eyre’s acclaimed five star revival of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts, starring Lesley Manville, transferred from London’s Almeida Theatre to Trafalgar Studio One this month and is scheduled to run early March 2014.

Richard, who was named Best Director at the recent Evening Standard Theatre Awards, adapted Ibsen’s text for the sold out production. Lesley was also nominated for Best Actress. Ghosts centres on Helene Alving (Lesley) who has spent her life suspended in an emotional void after the death of her cruel, but outwardly charming, husband. She is determined to escape the ghosts of her past by telling her son the truth about his father.

Lesley kindly signed my sketch at the Trafalgar Studios prior to Christmas.