Drawing: Aimée-Ffion Edwards in Jerusalem

Posted on October 22, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

I first saw Welsh actress Aimée-Ffion Edwards in Jez Butterworth’s outstanding play Jerusalem at the Apollo Theatre on London’s Shaftesbury Ave. The play opened at the downstairs theatre of London’s Royal Court Theatre in 2009 to rave reviews. It starred Mark Rylance as Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron, a modern day Pied Piper and Mackenzie Crook as Ginger, an aspiring DJ and unemployed plasterer.

The title is based on a short a short poem ‘And did those feet in ancient time’ by William Blake, best known as the anthem ‘Jerusalem’ with music written by Hubert Parry in 1916.

Jerusalem along with most of the original cast, including Aimée-Ffion, transferred to the Apollo Theatre in the West End in 2010 before its Broadway run in 2011 followed by a London revival later that year, again at the Apollo. It won multiple awards, including the Olivier and Tony.

Aimee-Ffion played Phaedra, the stepdaughter of local thug Troy Whitworth who goes missing in the play. She is seen at the beginning of both Act One and Two singing the hymn ‘Jerusalem’ dressed in fairy wings, which was the basis for this sketch which she signed for me at the Apollo Stage door.

Drawing: Nigel Lindsay in Shrek

Posted on October 17, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

British actor Nigel Lindsay played the title role in the original production of Shrek The Musical which opened at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on 14 June 2011. He finished in February 2012, earning nominations for both the Laurence Olivier and Whatsonstage Awards for Best Actor in a Musical.

The previous year he won the latter for Best Supporting Actor as Dr Harry Hyman in Arthur Miller’s Broken Glass at the Tricylcle Theatre in London.

To play the grumpy Socttish ogre Shrek, Nigel had to spend 90 minutes before each performance having a prosthetic make up applied. There was also a touch of the Time Lord in his voice – he asked his mate David Tennant to help him out with this delivery – a cross between Kenny Dalglish and the former Dr Who. David said if he did Kenny no one would understand him, Nigel responded that, “yeah, but you’re too fey” so David ‘butched’ it up for him.

Nigel’s currently playing Charlie Fox in David Mamet’s Speed the Plow at London’s The Playhouse where he signed my sketch last night.

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.

Drawing: Billie Piper in Reasons To Be Pretty at the Almeida Theatre

Posted on October 4, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Playwright Neil LaBute is haunted the American obsession with physical beauty. His 2008 play Reasons To Be Pretty was successfully revived in London at the Almeida Theatre in late 2011 with a cast including award-winning British actress Billie Piper. It examines our perception of beauty and asks whether it is as much of a curse to be conventionally attractive as it is to be considered ugly. It’s the final intstallment of his trilogy about society’s obsession with looks, following The Shape of Things which premiered at the Almeida in 2001, and Fat Pig which was a West End hit in 2008.

Billie, expecting her second child, played pregnant supermarket security guard Carly who is worried she may be losing the affections of her partner Kent who is besotted by a ‘stunner’ working in another part of the factory. The Telegraph’s Charles Spencer said that the play “…is blessed with a heart wrenching turn from the wonderful Billie Piper.”

LaBute has written a sequel Reasons To Be Happy which premiered in June 2013 at the MCC Theatre in New York.

Billie has just completed the premiere season of Richard Bean’s latest satire Great Britain to rave reviews at the National before it transferred to the West End’s Theatre Royal Haymarket with Lucy Punch replacing Billie in the lead role.

Drawing: Lucy Punch in Great Britain at the Royal Theatre Haymarket

Posted on October 3, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Richard Bean’s new political satire Great Britain about “Press, Police and Politics” and the cosily corrupt connections of all three, opened at the National Theatre within days of the end of the phone-hacking trial and was an immediate hit.

Directed by Sir Nicholas Hytner, it transferred to the Royal Theatre Haymarket with Lucy Punch replacing Billie Piper in the title role as Paige Britain, the ruthless and power crazed news editor who ends up sleeping with both the PM and the Assistant Met Commissioner.

The 36 year old Lucy returns to the stage after a 12 year absence. Her stock character on the screen she admits are ‘the vulgar and the ditsy’ such as the dopey receptionist in Doc Martin, to Anthony Hopkins promiscuous trophy girlfriend in Woody Allen‘s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. She told The Guardian “If the character is smug, bitchy, trashy or has dubious morals, call me!”

Paul Gent in The Telegraph said of her role as Paige Britain, “Lucy Punch makes her ballsy and thoroughly unlikeable”. She was thoroughly likeable at the stage door when she signed this sketch after last night’s performance.

Drawing: Jill Halfpenny in Calendar Girls

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Top British actress Jill Halfpenny is equally known for her small screen appearances and stage work. She has appeared in both Coronation Street (1999-2000) and its rival Eastenders (2002-2005) and was the winner of Strictly Come Dancing‘s second season in 2004.

Her successful theatre career includes West End productions such as Chicago, Abigail’s Party and Legally Blonde, for which she won both the Theatre Goers Choice and Olivier Awards for Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a musical (2011).

She also starred in the West End transfer of Tim Firth’s Calendar Girls at the Noël Coward Theatre in the summer of 2009. It’s the theatre version of the film and, based on the real life tale of the Women’s Institute members from North Yorkshire who stripped off for a charity calendar in memory of member Angela Baker’s husband John who died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 1998. It raised more than £1million for Leukaemia Research.

Jill dressed down for the role and as one newspaper put it, “to get her thruppeny bits out”. Like the film, modesty is protected on stage by a series of well positioned props.

I drew this quick black biro sketch which she signed at the stage door during her three month stint.

Drawing: Genevieve O’Reilly in Birdsong

Posted on September 26, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Irish-Australian actress Genevieve O’Reilly played the love interest opposite Ben Barnes in Trevor Nunn‘s stage version of Sebastian Faulk’s harrowing WWI novel Birdsong at London’s Comedy Theatre at the end of 2010

It follows the fortunes of Stephen Wraysford who is sent to Northern France to stay with a factory owner and has an affair with the owner’s wife Isabelle. Six years later he returns to fight in the trenches in the same fields where he fell in love.

In an Evening Standard interview Ben commented on the ‘velvety texture’ to Genevieve’s voice, which is Irish overlaid with a hint of Adelaide, where she grew up from the age of ten.

She had worked with Trevor before on the acclaimed 2005 production of Richard II playing the Queen to Kevin Spacey‘s Richard. Film Fans will probably best remember he as Dash MacKenzie in Avatar or Mon Mothma in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

Drawing: Nick Moran in Twelve Angry Men at The Garrick Theatre

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Twelve Angry Men was originally written for television in 1954, later adapted as a feature film with Henry Fonda, then for the stage.

The real-time jury room drama, in which a lone crusader for justice (Juror 8) persuades his unforgiving fellow white jurors that the unseen black prisoner on trial for his life may not be guilty, returned to the London stage at the Garrick Theatre at the end of 2013 and early 2014.

Nick Moran, “every mum’s favourite angel-faced thug” (as described by The Spectator), is Juror 7, a nervy, clownish, spivvy marmalade salesman, impatient to delivery any verdict so he can slope off to watch a ball game. He was part of an impressive ensemble cast that included Martin Shaw, Robert Vaughn, Jeff Fahey, Miles Richardson and Tom Conti.

Drawing: Joanna Riding in The Pajama Game at The Shaftesbury Theatre

Posted on September 13, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Joanna Riding is one of the true gems of British musical theatre. In a sparkling career that began at the Chichester Festival Theatre in the 80s she has been nominated for four Olivier Awards, winning two, for her role as Julie Jordan in Nicholas Hytner’s revival of Carousel at the National Theatre in 1993 and her performance as Eliza Doolittle in Trevor Nunn‘s revival of My Fair Lady in 2003, also at the National.

This is a quick sketch of Joanna as Babe Williams, the feisty Union rep at the Sleep-Tite Garment Factory in Richard Eyre’s wonderful production of the 1954 Broadway classic The Pajama Game. The West End Transfer from Chichester completes a limited season at London’s Shaftesbury Theatre today, trailing five star reviews.

Drawing: Kara Tointon and Rupert Everett in Pygmalion

Posted on September 10, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The Chichester production of George Bernard Shaw’s greatest play Pygmalion, transferred to London’s West End for a three month season at the Garrick Theatre in the Summer of 2011.

New cast member Kara Tointon, previously know for Eastenders and winning Strictly Come Dancing made a terrific West End stage debut as the cockney guttersnipe Eliza Doolittle, who transforms from torturing innocent vowels into a toff with a posh elocution when becoming the subject of a bet between Professor of Phonetics and confirmed bachelor Henry Higgins and a fellow linguist .

Rupert Everett reprised the role of his devilish and unconventional Higgins from Chichester.