Winter is starting to bite here in the UK so why not post a little bit of Summer with a quick sketch of one of the immensely talented Strallen sisters. Summer was headlining with Tom Chambers in TOP HAT at London’s Aldwych Theatre in the summer of 2012 when I did this ‘lineal shorthand’ sketch of her, which some would say was a visual metaphor for our British summers – bright but quick!
As you may have realised drawing sketches and then getting them signed takes time. Hanging around stage doors in all weather conditions is part of the package. There are a variety of things one can do to pass the time, not all of them worthwhile. Sometimes I get out my little A5 Ryman’s sketch pad and start employing my trusty 4B clutch pencil.
On one such occasion on a balmy summer’s evening, while waiting for Kristin Scott Thomas, Lia Williams and Rufus Sewell to emerge after a performance of BETRAYAL at the Comedy Theatre to sign a cast drawing, I drew this quick portrait of Kristin… manners, Dame Kristin, although she wasn’t a Dame then in 2011. She kindly signed and dedicated both renderings for me.
“Let’s do the Time Warp again!”
The legendary Rocky Horror Show returned to the West End for a short season at the Playhouse Theatre which ends today, ahead of a UK Tour. Creator Richard O’Brien also returned, this time as the Narrator. A firm favourite with theatre-goers, the Christopher Luscombe directed production was extended by an extra week due to demand. Included in the run was a one-off charity performance with special guests, including Stephen Fry and Emma Brunton in aid of Amnesty International,broadcast live throughout the UK and Europe. Olivier Award winner David Bedella also returned as the lead Frank’n’ Furter after performing in various Rocky productions between 2006 to 2010. He is joined by Ben Forster as Brad, who played the role in the 40th Anniversary UK Tour and Haley Flaherty completes the many happy returns as Janet, after playing her in Singapore, NZ and the UK Tours. All three will not be part of the upcoming British tour.
The show does attract a loyal and dedicated fan-base, who usually gather at the stage door in a variety of cross-dressing guises and nominal drapery in homage to the production. I spent a little bit of time amongst them over the fortnight, securing graphs on my sketches. At times, more conservative attire made me the oddball and the only one with drawings to sign, even odder. But that’s what the show’s all about-accepting people’s differences and it certainly makes a difference to your day when you harvest a full set of signed sketches.
“There’s no business like shoe business,” was the pun that a few reviewers couldn’t resist using after Jerry Mitchell’s runaway Broadway hit musical Kinky Boots danced into the Aldephi Theatre in London’s West End this month. Adapted by Harvey Fierstein with songs by veteran pop star and activist Cyndi Lauper, it received 13 Tony nominations, winning six, including Best Musical and Best Score. Based on the British film of 2005 starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and inspired by true events documented in the BBC’s Trouble at the Top:The Kinky Boot Factory, it tells the tale of Charlie Price, (Killian Donnelly) the reluctant heir to a struggling Northampton shoe factory. As he starts laying off some of the staff, one of them, the passionate and quirky Lauren (Amy Lennox) tells him that the only way to survive is to enter an ‘underserved niche market.’ A chance meeting with drag queen Lola (Matt Henry) confirms this and convinces Charlie that there is a future in flashy, thigh-length boots or as she salaciously describes “two-and-a-half-feet of irresistible tubular sex.”
On the first Saturday after a successful press night I strolled to the stage door in my affordable 4B-pencil grey canvas sneakers-I’m such a slave to fashion-and waited with a sizeable group in a variety of footwear for the cast to emerge after the matinee. I did this sketch of Killian, Matt and Amy and hoped to get it graphed. A number of Lola’s Angels came out still wearing the remnents of stage make-up, so it started to resemble a Pride Parade, as did Matt who was very gracious about the drawing. Killian followed. He had signed a sketch for me before from his Olivier-nominated role in Memphis.Two done,one to go. I don’t think Amy was intending to come down, but Matt told her about my drawing. The security person, in a shiny pair of black boots beckoned me to the door and Amy, who had also previously signed one of my renderings was waiting for me.
I had always been meaning to draw British actress Sarah Miles. Probably for the past twenty years, maybe longer, but kept putting it off. Then, two weeks ago when I was reading an article on one of my favourite directors, David Lean, I decided to do it! Known for towering cinematic achievements such as The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Doctor Zhivago, it is his much-maligned and critically savaged Ryan’s Daughter that remains my favourite. I first saw it at my hometown cinema, having just crossed into purity and instantly fell in love with Sarah, who played Rosy Ryan, the film’s titular character. Because of the critical reception, Lean stopped making films for years afterwards, even though it was nominated for four Academy Awards, including one for Sarah. This part of the article was accompanied by a pic of her as Rosy, which prompted me to take the 4B and start sketching as my mind meandered down memory lane. I had always wanted to see Sarah on stage. She played Ann Kron in Well at London’s Trafalgar Studios in late 2008, transferring to the Apollo and ending four days before I arrived in the UK. Bummer. I added a quick rendering of her from the play to complete the screen and stage composition before placing it in the capable hands of the Royal Mail. Less than a week later, it arrived back, signed and dedicated with a note saying I had captured her perfectly and requesting one for her scrapbook.
Nicole Kidman returned to the West End after seventeen years absence in Anna Ziegler’s Photograph 51 at the Noel Coward Theatre on Saturday night. Directed by Michael Grandage, it revolves around the story of molecular biologist Roselind Franklin and one of the twentieth century’s greatest achievements, the discovery of the DNA double helix or what scientists called ‘the secret of life.’ Central to the narrative is ‘Photo 51’, the name given to an x-ray image taken by one of Franklin’s researchers at King’s College in London, which revealed the double helix shape of deoxyribonucleic acid, a crucial starting point for research by Francis Crick, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins who identified how DNA was structured. All three men received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1962, four years after Franklin’s death of overian cancer at the age of 37. Debate about the amount of credit due to her still exists, but in his memoirs, Watson stated that ‘Photo 51’ provided the vital clue to the double helix. Many believe she should have been posthumously honoured by the Nobel Committee.
After receiving a standing ovation at the conclusion of Saturday night’s opening performance, Nicole graciously meet the huge throng waiting at the stage door barriers and did her best to sign and pose for more than 51 photographs as possible. Nicole’s signature probably has 51 plus variations. The common denominator is the downstroke of the first capital ‘N’ with a curl at it’s base, the rest can resemble multiple helixes, where sometimes you can make out a her name in various calligraphic contortions or a flourished line, as I got on this sketch. A glance around others who managed to get her graph confirmed this. Not one of them, apart from the said “N” looked the same. I guess you could say that everyone is truly original. Given the situation and the fact that she was only signing show material, I was pleased with the result.
Welsh comedian and ‘fully fledged light entertainment personality’ Rob Brydon is currently starring in Future Conditional, the first production at the Old Vic theatre under its new artistic director Matthew Warchus, who has taken over from Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey. The play tackles the challenges of the British schooling system – a subject I have a close working knowledge of- written by Royal Court director-turned-writer Tamsin Oglesby. Rob plays an English Teacher, God held him. And it was the good Lord who was uttered as he saw this sketch when I stopped him whizzing out of the Old Vic stage door on Saturday night. I think it was an exclamation of admiration rather than a call to the almighty for help. “Oh my Lord,” he gasped followed by “Yes,yes.yes.”- the holy trinity of confirmation to my signing request.
“The oddest of odd couple comedy”, is how Richard Bean’s The Mentalists is described by a number of critics. “It’s a sympathetic understanding of the darker recesses of the human heart,” wrote Charles Spencer in the Mail. The play revolves around Ted and Morrie, two men holed up in a budget hotel in Finsbury Park, making an apocalyptic video. Premiering in 2002 at the National, it was revived last month at London’s Wyndham’s Theatre, directed by Abbey Wright, with Steffan Rhodri as Morrie and making his ‘impressive’ (The Independent) West End debut, Stephen Merchant as Ted. ‘Very Funny’, said TimeOut and Paul Taylor commented on the “fine Merchant-Rhodri chemistry”, in The Independent, so catch it before it finishes on 29 August!
I did a couple of sketches-one with Stephen, which he signed earlier in the run and one of the ‘oddest of odd couples’, which I got graphed over the weekend. So now I have an odd couple of drawings.
“Arthur Miller’s 1994 play towers over the dismal lowlands of current West End theatre like a majestic mountain peak.” wrote The Guardian’s Michael Billington in his five-star review of Broken Glass. Pretty impressive stuff from one of Britain’s leading critics.
The play focuses on Phillip and Sylvia Gellburg, a Jewish couple living in 1938 New York whose lives are affected by the anti-Semitic events of Kristallnacht (The night of Broken Glass) in Nazi Germany. Sylvia becomes paralysed from the waist down, a condition her doctor believes is psychosomatic and treats it as such. But what was the cause and who is the real cripple?
Originally staged in London at the National in 1994, this revival began at the Tricycle Theatre, a small fringe venue in Kilburn in late 2010. It returned for a month run in August the following year before transferring to the Vaudeville Theatre in the West End in September for a four month season. An excellent cast was headed by Antony Sher and Tara Fitzgerald in the lead roles. “Sher gives a superb performance of crippling anxiety…Fitzgerald brings a potent mixture of warmth,sensuality and grief,” wrote Charles Spencer of their performances in the Daily Telegraph. Both signed my sketch in person on a chilly winter’s evening at the stage door.
Hundreds of letters were exchanged between Laurence Olivier and his second wife, Vivien Leigh from their steamy adulterous beginnings in 1936 to the final years of indifference. They documented one of the great love stories of the 20th Century. However in 1960 one letter from Larry to Vivien, while she was starring in Duel Of Angels on Broadway, asked her for a divorce. Her response created a world-wide sensation and the subject for award-winning playwright Donald Macdonald’s Viven:Letter To Larry, which is currently playing at London’s Jermyn Street Theatre in its first full West End run. Australian actress Susie Lindeman portrays the screen legend following a critically-acclaimed Paris premiere season with Reg ARTS Paris stating,”Tour de force. Exquisitely written. Lindeman holds the audience in suspense. An interpretation of genius.” It’s the second time Susie has presented the play at Jermyn Street, staging a special performance for the centennary of Leigh’s birth in November 2013.
I meet the personable Susie going into the Jermyn Street Theatre for last Saturday’s matinee and she signed this sketch of her in the role.
ChicanePictures 