Creating 'The Hypochondriac' poster

In an age when you can download anything from the internet, copyright of images is always a problem. So when I designed the posters for Newport Playgoers' 88th Season (2011/12) I decided to create a series of posters that had a corporate look, each one featuring an original piece of artwork.

For some weird reason I actually designed the posters chronologically working my way through from the first to the last in the season. So the final one I did, with a sigh of relief, was for 'The Hypochondriac'. This was great fun to do - and not just because it was the last of nine posters. The play is a hilarious re-working by legendary Liverpool poet Roger McGough of Moliere's classic comedy. I knew it needed a caricature face - an anxious man suffering from 'le malade imaginaire' (that's your actual French).

I spent a long time drawing various pen and ink versions of the face until coming up with one that I was happy with, complete with worried expression and nightcap. After scanning it into my PC, I set about adding colour using a marvellous (free) program called Artweaver. Much like Photoshop, it enables you to work in layers and employ various brushes to get different styles.

Once the hypochondriac himself was finished I set about drawing various medicine and pill bottles - the shape of which I researched on the internet. Again these were scanned in and coloured. Finally I put all the artwork together using Adobe InDesign, jigging the ingredients around until I had the poster below.

For more information about 'The Hypochondriac' visit http://newportplaygoers.wordpress.com
If you want to try out Artweaver you can download it here: http://www.artweaver.de/

Countdown begins to No Holds Bard!

So we’re a mere 13 days away from the opening of the No Holds Bard festival, which features my one act play ‘Poor Yorick’ – and panic has begun to set in as we’ve yet to run the play all the way through..

Yorick (Will Smith-Haddon) makes himself at
home in Hamlet's (Chris Powell) room
at Elsinore

 Focusing on Hamlet’s story as seen through the eyes of his court jester who has gone on tour pioneering stand-up comedy, the play is at least getting plenty of laughs from the cast during rehearsals.

It’s quite a cast too! Will Smith-Haddon is great as Yorick, the clown who’s ahead of his time with his observational humour – “What is it with the Black Death? That's a bit depressing isn't it?” 

Yorick (Will Smith-Haddon) and Bess
(Clare Drewett) may not have much but at least
they have each other

Clare Drewett plays his bawdy wench girlfriend Bess who specialises in knocking back ale and making rat stew. Chris Powell excels as a whinging Hamlet who is fed up of his moaning mother, Gertrude – played to perfection by Sue Morgan in a glittering gown, tiara and Marigold gloves. Bruce Campbell makes a brief appearance as a surprisingly chirpy ghost of Hamlet’s father, offering words of advice such as "Don't drink the wine".

Yorick and Hamlet discuss vacancies for court jester
while Queen Gertrude (Sue Morgan) attempts to
clean the room

The festival is Newport Playgoers’ contribution to the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Open Stages project which aims to reunite the worlds of amateur and professional theatre. With four plays offering a mixture of slapstick, bloody sword fights and romantic mix-ups it promises to be an evening of lively entertainment that gives a thoroughly modern take on Shakespeare and turns his plots into plays for today. For more information check out http://newportplaygoers.wordpress.com/

We're all really excited that our local newspaper, the South Wales Argus, is sponsoring the festival.  Please come along and support us from 15 – 17 March at the Dolman Theatre, Newport. Tickets, which are just £5 and £7, can be booked by phoning the box office on 01633 263670 or visiting www.dolmantheatre.co.uk.

Creating Posters for Newport Playgoers - 'St Trinian's'

As well as designing the posters for all eight forthcoming productions by Newport Playgoers, I also agreed to do the one for Dolman Youth Theatre's 'St Trinian's' which is at the Dolman Theatre from 8 - 10 December.

My first attempt at re-creating
a Ronald Searle St Trinian's
schoolgirl

This was a joy to do as I've always loved the drawings of Ronald Searle who created the fiendish schoolgirls as cartoons for magazines and books before they were turned into a series of highly successful films.

One of my personal heroes, John Lennon said, "The two people who have probably had the greatest influence on my life are Lewis Carroll and Ronald Searle" and you can see that influence at work in Lennon's very loose, surreal drawings.

A hockey-wielding schoolgirl

Searle probably isn't as celebrated in the UK as he once was, but his influence has been immense - you only have to see his work to appreciate this. Another of my favourite artists, Quentin Blake, is clearly influenced by Searle.

Wouldn't want to meet her on a
dark night...

Among his other work, Searle created the images for films such as 'Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines' and 'The Lavender Hill Mob' as well as scores of illustrations for advertising campaigns, books and magazines. Some great examples of his work can be seen on this excellent blog dedicated to Searle:  http://ronaldsearle.blogspot.com/

A blonde bombshell - originally
drawn by Seale smoking a cigarette
which I omitted from my version

For the poster I decided to do my own versions of some of Searle's wildcat schoolgirls. However, his very free style is not easy to imitate - it takes years of practice to draw in a style that looks effortless - and it took me many attempts before I was happy with the results.

When I had five that I thought were good enough, I coloured them in - using a similar watercolour wash employed by Searle - then composed the poster using InDesign. 

Creating Posters for Newport Playgoers - 'Humble Boy'

First attempt at drawing the title character

I had never heard of the play 'Humble Boy' by Charlotte Jones when I began the task of creating a poster for it.

Once again the internet came to my rescue, providing examples of other posters and various synopses. Apparently it's a re-working of 'Hamlet' - and bees and bee-keeping play a big part.



Second attempt at drawing Felix



I decided that I needed to draw the title character, Felix Humble. He's a lecturer at Cambridge University so I added glasses to make him look academic.

The action of the play takes place in a garden so that's where I wanted to put him, surrounded by bees - possibly with a bee landing on his nose.



Coloured version



The cartoon bee





I wasn't happy with my first attempt at drawing him, so started again. I knew I wanted to create the face and the bee separately and then put them together when I composed the final poster.



For the second drawing of the face I added more detail and once happy with it, used Photoshop to add basic colours. I then drew a large cartoon-style bee and coloured that. After that, I drew some flowers and a swarm of bees; then put the whole lot together to make the poster below.

Creating Posters for Newport Playgoers - 'Fawlty Towers'

When I rather reluctantly agreed to design the posters for Newport Playgoers' 88th Season, I decided that, in order to avoid any problems with copyright, I would create the images for the posters myself.

Original line drawing of Basil

First production of the new season will be 'Fawlty Towers' featuring a range of instantly recognisable characters such as manic hotel owner Basil, his wife Sybil, hapless Spanish waiter Manuel and Polly the maid. There was plenty of reference material available for their faces - from photos to drawings.



Coloured and cleaned-up version of Basil

 The one I spent most time on was Basil, as played on TV by John Cleese. I decided to concentrate on the characters' head and shoulders, using simple clean lines.

 After doing a version I thought captured the character I put it into Photoshop where I added the colours, layer by layer.

As well as the characters, I realised it was also important to draw the shape of the iconic sign from outside the hotel for the title of the play to go in.



Cartoon in colour of Manuel
the Spanish waiter

 With all the artwork finished, it was then a case of importing them all into Adobe InDesign and playing with a range of different compositions  to create the final poster, which would serve as a template for all the other posters.

Next: Creating the poster for 'Humble Boy' by Charlotte Jones. Click here to read it.

The drama of crazy golf

My play 'Bunkered' finally had a full cast for a rehearsal - and it was marvellous to see them all bringing my characters to life. More people also equals more laughs.

Particularly good to see Alex Wilson become belligerent businessman Bulstrode and playing crazy golf with his very bored "personal assistant" Poppy played by Sam Jones.

Here's a photo of them in action.

To see them in the flesh come along to the Hole in One Act Play Festival at the Dolman Theatre in Newport, 12 - 16 October. For tickets and more info phone 01633 263670.

From page to stage

It's amazing watching a play you've written make the transition from page to stage, and seeing the characters that once only existed in your imagination brought to life by talented actors. Last week's rehearsal of my play, 'Bunkered' which is part of the Hole in One Act Play Festival at the Dolman Theatre, was amazing. I sat snapping away as my wife, Caroline, directed the action, and then put the best photos into this short video. Hope you enjoy it.

Wishes do come true (when it comes to crazy golf)

So there I was, desperate for a crazy golf course to take photos of the cast of my one act play 'Bunkered' which is part of the Hole in One Act Play Festival.

Where shall it be? I wondered. Barry Island perhaps - there's a very good pirate one there - or possibly Tredegar Park.

Whilst I was pondering this, as part of the Big Splash event held over the August Bank Holiday weekend a crazy golf course was built on the doorstep of the Dolman Theatre.

A quick chat with the owner, Dave Lovatt, revealed that he's a theatre director from Bristol with a passion for crazy golf courses. Could we take photos of our cast on his course? No problem, he replied. So we did, for which, much thanks, Dave. His crazy golf course, by the way, is brilliantly fiendish and includes a pool table!

Dave is pictured, centre, at the photoshoot with Playgoers Bruno Cook and Lauren Brown. More details about the photos can be found here: http://newportplaygoers.wordpress.com/

Information about Dave's show 'Carny Village' can be found here: http://invisiblecircus.co.uk/invisible_circus/TheInvisibleCircus/Home.html

The play’s the thing

I was really pleased to hear that one of the plays I entered for Newport Playgoers’ One Act Play-Writing Competition had been selected for the forthcoming festival.

The theme of the plays was ‘golf’ of which I know precious little, except for the occasional highly competitive game of crazy golf I play with my wife Caroline. So I wrote about that – a down-at-heel crazy golf course that’s on the verge of bankruptcy because it’s at the wrong end of the recently revamped seafront.

The plays were judged by Frank Vickery, regarded by many to be Wales’s top playwright, and out of the 40+ plays entered, he chose three from a shortlist of 11. My play ‘Bunkered’ will now be part of the Hole in One Act Play Festival at the Dolman Theatre in Newport from 12 – 16 October 2010.

Caroline will direct it and we’re currently putting together a cast and desperately trying to find items for the set – namely, a small shed and a large ornamental windmill obstacle! As things progress, I hope to make a video diary of the play’s progress from page to stage, and will be posting it here.  For more information about the Festival, visit my blogsite: http://newportplaygoers.wordpress.com/

Budding Playwrights can take Centre Stage!

To celebrate Newport hosting the Ryder Cup 2010, Newport Playgoers Society, which owns and runs the city’s 400-seater Dolman Theatre, is holding a competition aimed at encouraging the writing of plays for amateur theatre.

To enter the competition, budding playwrights are invited to submit one act plays on the theme of ‘golf’. Plays should be between 20 - 30 minutes in length using a cast of 2 - 5 actors. In addition to a cash prize, the three best plays will be performed in the Dolman Studio Theatre for three nights culminating in a gala evening when prizes will be officially presented.

An Adjudication Panel appointed by Newport Playgoers Society will read and consider the plays entered in the competition and, in addition to arranging production of the plays at the Dolman Studio Theatre, will award the following prizes: 1st Prize - £100 plus trophy; 2nd Prize - £50; 3rd Prize - £25.
To download an application form, go to http://www.dolmantheatre.co.uk/.