Drawing: Matthew Fox and Olivia Williams In a Forest Dark and Deep at the Vaudeville Theatre

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Neil LaBute’s In A Forest, Dark And Deep received its world premiere in London’s Vaudeville Theatre in March 2011. It starred Matthew Fox in his stage debut and Olivia Williams, and ran for a limited season until early June.

Set in a woodland cabin on a dark and stormy night, the play is described as a “dark comedy of sibling rivalry” that turns psychological thriller. It’s a two-hander. Involving Bobby and Betty in a 90 minute confrontation that keeps the audience guessing as to who is the ‘manipulator’ and who is the ‘manipulated’ punctuated with surprises.

Speaking of punctuation, there was some discussion amongst critics and theatre-goers alike about Neil’s, comma in the title, considered at best redundant, and at worst just plain wrong…

Drawing: Amanda Drew, Samuel West, Tim Pigott-Smith, Tom Goodman-Hill in Enron at the Noel Coward Theatre

Posted on July 15, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The world premiere production of Lucy Prebble’s celebrated play Enron sold out its entire run at the Minerva Theatre Chichester and all of its tickets before opening its six week run at the Royal Court. It transferred to the Noel Coward Theatre in January 2010. Directed by Rupert Goold, the cast featured Samuel West, Amanda Drew, Tim Pigott-Smith and Tom Goodman-Hill.

Enron was inspired by one of the most famous scandals in financial history, reviewing the tumultuous 1990s and casting a new light on the fiscal turmoil in which the world currently finds itself. Its tagline: A true story of false profits.

Despite its commercial and critical success, Enron lasted just over a month on Broadway at the Broadhunt Theatre in the Summer of 2010. A ‘hostile’ review by The New York Times critic Ben Brantley is thought to have contributed to the premature clsoure. As the Guardian’s Michael Billington pointed out, “no serious play on Broadway can survive a withering attack from The New York Times, which carries the force of a papal indictment”. It did pick up a Tony nomination for Original Score.

The four leads all signed my sketch at the Noël Coward stage door on 8 May 2010.

Drawing: Julie Atherton as Kate Monster in Avenue Q

Posted on July 11, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Julie Atherton was part of the original West End cast of the musical Avenue Q when it transferred from Broadway to the Noël Coward Theatre in June 2006. She played Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut until December 2007, returning to the production at the Gilegud in late 2008 until October 2009. I saw the show in June that year where Julie signed these sketches for me.

Julie will be playing the lead role in Thérèse Raquin at the Park Theatre in London from 31 July to 24 August 2014.

Drawing: Mark Rylance, Miriam Margolyes, Simon McBurney and Tom Hickey in Endgame

Posted on July 10, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

‘Graph collecting in London in the dead of winter. What better than to stalk a Samuel Beckett play to match the cold, dark and bleak elements. The fourth revival in a decade of Beckett’s Endgame at the Duchess Theatre, considered along with Waiting for Godot to be among his most important works. One critic said it was like “watching a world edge into darkness.” Beeckett liked his plays to be as colourlesss as posssible. This one seems to be set in a grey area somehere near the end of the literary universe. The title is taken from the last part of a chess game, when there are very few pieces left. It involves four characters; Hamm, who is blind and unable to stand; Clov, a servant, unable to sit; Nagg, Hamm’s father with no legs and lives in a dustbin and Hamm’s mother, Nell, who also lives in a dustbin next to her husband and has no legs. Simon McBurney directed te production and played Clov, with Mark Rylance as Hamm. It also featured Tom Hickey as Nagg and Miriam Margolyes as Nell. The Duchess is on of the few West End Theatres to have veranda over the stage door, because it’s only a few metres away form the man entrance. However, on a particularly inclement November night in 2009, driving horizontal rain with extras rendered it useless – in fact it became a collection point for large quantities of H2O and acted as a a sieve. thankfully one drip landed on my caption text and not the artwork or sigs. God respects ‘graphers, me thinks.

Drawing: Imogen Stubbs in Little Eyolf at the Jermyn Street Theatre

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Actress and playwright Imogen Stubbs is a veteran of over 40 plays, starting with the role of Sally Bowles in Cabaret at the Wolsey Theatre in 1985. In 2011 she took her most harrowing part as Rita in Henrik Ibsen’s 1894 play Little Eyolf at the Jermyn Street Theatre in London.

“No one could describe Ibsen’s play as fun, but Imogen Stubb’s performance almost blows the roof off the theatre,” wrote Charles Spencer in The Telegraph.

Imogen’s most recent foray onto the West End boards was Strangers On A Train. She signed this sketch for me at the Jermyn Street Theatre in May 2011.

Drawing: Andrew Scott, Lisa Dillon and Tom Burke in Design for Living

Posted on July 3, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Initially banned in the UK, Noël Coward’s 1932 provocative, witty, dark, bisexual comedy Design For Living had a major revival at London’s Old Vic in the Winter of 2010.

Directed by Old Vic Associate and Tony Award winner Anthony Page, the production featured Tom Burke (Otto), Lisa Dillon (Gilda) and Andrew Scott (Leo) as the menage-a-trois in this three act, two interval play.

Otto is a painter, Leo is a playwright and Gilda is an interior designer. The lines of engagement are: Gilda lives with artist Otto, but is equally drawn to playwright Leo. The two men, however, have enjoyed intimacy that predates Gilda.

Critic Michael Billington said, “the play offers a genuine contest between the bohemian talentocracy and moral orthodoxy. It is an attack on bourgeois stuffiness.”

As Leo puts it, “I love you. You love me. You love Otto. I love Otto. Otto loves you. Otto loves me,” providing the basis for the play’s plot convolutions.

Drawing: Freddie Fox in Hay Fever

Posted on June 28, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

The latest West End revival of Noel Coward’s comic play Hay Fever was staged, appropriately, at the Noel Coward Theatre in 2012. A cross between high farce and a comedy of manners, it is set in an English country house in the 1920s and deals with the four eccentric members of the Bliss family, and their outlandish behaviour. “Crisp comic bliss,” one critic wrote.

Frederic Samson Robert Morie Fox, thankfully abbreviated his name to Freddie, played Simon Bliss the son who was superbly resolute in his refusal to grow up. From the famous family of Foxes, Freddie definitely has the acting gene. The Observers Kate Kellaway described Freddie as, “deliciously debonair… a thespian treat, slightly teasing formality with poised charm.” He was certainly all that when he signed this sketch, after a summer evening’s performance in May 2012.

Drawing: Neil Morrissey as Fagin in Oliver!

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Best known for playing the role of Tony in Men Behaving Badly, British actor Neil Morrissey took on one of the all time crims as Fagin, my dears, in the sell-out UK touring production of Lionel Barts classic musical Oliver! He steals the show, leading his gang of young thieves thorugh memorable numbers such as ‘You’ve Got To Pick A Pocket Or Two’.

At 12, Neil was placed under a care order and legally separated from his parents, spending most of his time in a children’s home. He apparently has numerous tattoos. on his left arm is his first name and a blob which was intended to be his initials, but got infected and required an anti-tetanus shot on. A squiggle, meant to be the reversed version of “The Saint” logo is on the other arm. Legend has it that the inkings were done by other boys at the home, who in a sense of camaraderie, seeing he had no tats, offered him a choice – tattoos or a beating. He is quoted as saying he should have taken the other option.

Oh yes, and until recently he was the voice of Bob the Builder. For the last month of its West End run, Neil reunited with fellow Men Behaving Badly star Caroline Quentin, in Noël Coward’s Relative Values at the Pinter in London. It finished last week, but I caught up with Neil after at the stage door. He signed the sketch I did of him and Caroline, then I showed him this one, he said, “Blimey!” which I think is Midlander for Wow! Either way, he signed it. I also told him the result of one of the World Cup Games played earlier, whcih he was about to go and watch the replay of… oops.

Drawing: Gemma Chan in Yellow Face at The National Theatre

Posted on June 25, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

This mischievous comedy was performed in The Shed at the National Theatre last month featuring Gemma Chan in its ensemble cast. Written by Chinese-American playwright David Henry Hwang, it starts with his key role in the US Actors Equity Association protests against the casting of Jonathan Pryce as the Eurasian engineer in the Broadway version of Miss Saigon.

Many Asian-Americans and others regarded this as an example of “yellow face” casting – a caucasian actor applying make-up to portray a character of Asian descent.

Its a ‘mockumentary’ about an Asian-American playwright who, after protesting the casting of Price, accidentally casts a white actor as the Asian lead in his own play Face Value believing him to be of mixed race. He discovers that he is 100% white and tries to cover up to protect his reputation as an Asian-American role model.

It is notable that the National Theatre’s Artistic Director, Nicholas Hytner was the director of Miss Saigon. He amusingly programmed Yellow Face to run in the exact month Saigon returned to the West End. Oxford educated Gemma hailed her breakthrough in “colour-blind casting” when she won her first classical role in theatre, playing the war goddess Athena in Our Ajax at the Southwark Playhouse in 2013. The Sherlock and Jack Ryan actress still believes that actors of East Asian descent still don’t get opportunities white actors do. “I have to fight hard to get parts that don’t have something to do with China,” she said in a recent interview.

Drawing: Ian McDiarmid and Kathleen Turner in Bakersfield Mist at the Duchess Theatre

Posted on June 21, 2014 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Bakersfield Mist marks the return to the London stage of multi award winner Kathleen Turner for the first time since her tour-deforce performance in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She plays opposite Olivier and Tony winner Ian McDiarmid.

Inspired by true events, Stephen Sachs new play debates the nature of authenticity. Kathleen plays Maude, a boozy ex-bartender living in a Bakersfield trailer park who picks up what she claims is a Jackson Pollock for five bucks while trawling through a junk shop.

Ian is Lionel, a lecturer in Abstract Expressionism at Princeton University who is asked to verify the painting or declare it a fake. The play goes beyond the painting. It’s a culture clash between a woman desperately seeking validation for her life and a snobbish connoisseur of fine art. Which one is real?

While I was drawing the sketch I was reminded of Kathleen’s infamous line as the uncredited voice of Jessica Rabbit, Roger Rabbit’s flirtatious toon wife in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? In an interview she said it was just fun to do and that line was too good to pass up. Apparently half her autograph requests are to sign Jessica photos.

I met Kathleen and Ian after Wednesday’s (18 June) evening performance at the Duchess Theatre. They both liked the sketch and were happy to sign it. I was tempted to ask Kathleen to write her Jessica line, but maybe I’ll keel that request for another sketch. I think The Graduate would be more appropriate.