No selfies here: theatre fan sketches actors to preserve memories of the shows he loves most
Eddie Redmayne, Ian McKellen, Ken Watanabe – Hong Kong events organiser loved theatre so much he would travel four hours just to see a show, and taught himself to draw caricatures as his way of remembering favourite performances
Ian McKellen’s solemn portrayal of King Lear, a benevolent smirk on his face; Alfred Molina incarnating the conflict-ridden abstract painter Mark Rothko, depicted in shades of grey and red; drag-queen star Vicky Vox posing defiantly as the colourful, campy, murderous singing plant in The Little Shop of Horrors.
Hong Kong theatre fan Felix Chan drew all of these, and 200 more – sketches and caricatures through which he tries to capture the essence of performances.
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“Before, there weren’t a lot of promotional images available, and I wanted to create a visual memory of the plays I had seen,” says the Hong Kong events organiser, for whom art is a hobby.
Most of his sketches can be found on his Instagram account, @Felixsdrawing, which has close to 3,000 followers. His subjects are, mostly, drawn from performances he attended. Chan says he has watched around 600 plays in 10-plus years. During a recent 10-day trip to London in July, he watched 13 shows, including the King and I with Ken Watanabe, and The Lieutenant of Inishmore with Aidan Turner.
His love for the theatre was kindled when he went to study in the UK in 2003. At that time, he would gladly endure the four-hour trip between his college, near York in northern England, to London, to wander around the West End. Chan says: “I would stay at a friend’s home and try to watch as many plays as possible.”
He eventually moved to London to study English literature at Royal Holloway, University of London. There he was able to see plays at least once a week. It was around that time he decided to start drawing some of his favourite performances, as a way of keeping memories of them alive.
