Maggie Millar brings Miss Vale to life. By Ian Hayward Robinson
MAGGIE Millar’s contribution to this year’s Seniors Month has a fascinating history. In 1990 Maggie had the lead role, Miss Vale, in an ABC radio play by Elizabeth Jolley called Little Lewis Has Had a Lovely Sleep. After the play went to air, Maggie received a card from Elizabeth which began “I have just listened to your wonderful performance as Miss Vale. You were superb. Thank you very much for bringing her to life so well.”
Not long after, Maggie was performing a stage play in Perth with Jacki Weaver. She made contact with Elizabeth and they became friends. So when Maggie planned an evening of dramatic monologues, Elizabeth was an obvious choice for one of the writers, and a reprise of Miss Vale the obvious choice of character.
MAGGIE Millar’s contribution to this year’s Seniors Month has a fascinating history. In 1990 Maggie had the lead role, Miss Vale, in an ABC radio play by Elizabeth Jolley called Little Lewis Has Had a Lovely Sleep. After the play went to air, Maggie received a card from Elizabeth which began “I have just listened to your wonderful performance as Miss Vale. You were superb. Thank you very much for bringing her to life so well.”
Not long after, Maggie was performing a stage play in Perth with Jacki Weaver. She made contact with Elizabeth and they became friends. So when Maggie planned an evening of dramatic monologues, Elizabeth was an obvious choice for one of the writers, and a reprise of Miss Vale the obvious choice of character.
In the reading, Ms Vale waits outside a supermarket toilet and tells us about “Mr F” whom she hopes will turn out to be the Mr Right she has been waiting for all her life. Will he, like all the others in her life, turn out to be illusory?
Anyone who has heard Maggie read will know that she is the master of her craft. Trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where they had not one but three voice teachers, she makes every word, every syllable, count. Her reading of “Molly Bloom” from James Joyce’s Ulysses is so legendary that she was invited by the James Joyce Centre to perform it in Dublin on Bloomsday, celebrated around the world as the day on which the famous novel is set.
When it comes to the spoken word, Maggie Millar is peerless.
Maggie will read Mr Right by Elizabeth Jolley at the Bass Coast Library, Thompson Avenue, Cowes on 31 October at 2pm. Book at EventBrite.
Ian Hayward Robinson once reviewed Maggie Millar’s performance in a play by Dorothy Hewett. One thing led to another and they have now been together for 47 years. So he knows what he’s talking about.
Anyone who has heard Maggie read will know that she is the master of her craft. Trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where they had not one but three voice teachers, she makes every word, every syllable, count. Her reading of “Molly Bloom” from James Joyce’s Ulysses is so legendary that she was invited by the James Joyce Centre to perform it in Dublin on Bloomsday, celebrated around the world as the day on which the famous novel is set.
When it comes to the spoken word, Maggie Millar is peerless.
Maggie will read Mr Right by Elizabeth Jolley at the Bass Coast Library, Thompson Avenue, Cowes on 31 October at 2pm. Book at EventBrite.
Ian Hayward Robinson once reviewed Maggie Millar’s performance in a play by Dorothy Hewett. One thing led to another and they have now been together for 47 years. So he knows what he’s talking about.