Maggie Smith later performed this monologue on stage in the West End. She had such a great command of the audience that she managed to double the laughs, often simply with a look that created anticipation of a wicked observation to come, and therefore provoked a laugh where there certainly wasn't one in the script. It was a masterclass in comedy.
I just watched this again and noticed that there is an empty glass on the kitchen table in the opening shot. The writing, the performance and the direction are all in perfect alignment.
Heaps of kudos given to Maggie's acting and Alan's writing, and rightly deserved so. But I also like to give credit to the director and the camera work done on this as well as the music by the great George Fenton. None of them had that outsized ego to stamp some narcissistic individuality on this piece that could have ruined it altogether. Instead they tread very lightly and give the lightest of touch to it and the rest of the series, resulting in the perfect touch. Nothing unnecessary, nothing over dramatized (camera, pacing, music, etc), so what we get is the masterpiece in perfect form, no gilding of the lily here. Very tasteful really. Thank you for this.
The director was also Alan Bennett. Nice that he was able to handle the adaptation of his own writing. So many writers aren't happy with what happens to their scripts after the directors take over.
Maggie Smith has the ability to hold us in the palms of her hands, while she mesmerizes, entrances and manipulates our feelings and psyche. There is no one like her. Bravo Ms Maggie Smith.
Dame Maggie put on an acting clinic with this. The moment towards the end when her voice catches when she talks about Mr. Ramash leaving, was absolutely brilliant. It only lasted about two or three seconds, but it was absolutely powerful.
When Maggie performed this in Perth (Australia), the audience was in stitches after the first line. I've never seen anything like it. Her timing is miraculous.
I was lucky enough to see Dame Maggie perform this live..... she cracked up an entire theatre with the simple line, “Big day for you....” Only the best actors can do Mr Bennett’s lines justice.
This is why I am addicted to RUclips. I'd heard about "Talking Heads" but had never seen any episodes. I have seen Dame Maggie in many films and saw her onstage once. If I see her name, I will watch. But this is a side of her I'd never experienced, which makes it all the more stunning. I knew Alan Bennett was an incisive writer...this is ... I count myself beyond fortunate for having seen this tonight.
I am thrilled to find this on RUclips. I remember this from the original broadcast. There are so many lines I remember but when I watched it again I realized Maggie's pauses are as poignant as the words.
My God, it's been YEARS since I first saw the "Talking Heads" series, and for my money "Bed Among the Lentils," starring the incomparable Maggie Smith, is the best of them, though Patricia Routledge's "A Woman of No Importance" runs a close second. I don't think I have ever seen Maggie Smith give less than a wonderful performance in anything she has done. And to do so in a solo monologue is a miracle of the actor's art.
Saw it on stage some 20 years ago. It was one half of a performance called Talking Heads. Along with this play Margaret Tyzack performed a piece called Soldiering On. Both of them were exquisite. They don't make them better than this.
I am mesmerized... The talent here is simply out of this world. What an amazing, awe inspiring performance. I feel as if I am in a hypnotic trance. She is absolutely majestic. Thank you so much for posting this.
I watched this years ago on PBS and have never forgotten the brilliance of the dialogue and of course, Maggie Smith. It occurred to me to look for it online and to my absolute joy was able to enjoy this masterpiece once again.
For the masses who only know and love Maggie Smith for her old dowager bitches, for her flying hands and rubber wrists (all of which is lots of fun, no argument), HERE is the genius under the camp. She hardly moves her body, and it is impossible to look away. She knows this wistful woman who has no self-pity right down to the slightest nuance, and never does she seem to be saying "Watch me Act!" The monologues of her pastor's wife are rich with irony and loss, but not bitter. Her change in the final scene made me almost cheer at the screen.
Not the Wind in the Willows. Transforming the alter into a scene from Bambi.. a booby trap..Riotous laughter from here for sure. O love Dame Maggie Smith's delivery of scabious wit so quietly... She is boundless with talent.
This for me is one of my favourite performances by her, equalled only by the feature film The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, in which she is also superb.
I had the pleasure - thrill, actually - of seeing Maggie Smith onstage when I lived in NYC. In Tom Stoppard's "Night and Day" and Noel Coward's "Private Lives". In those plays as in this one, she was extraordinary.
Allen Bennett's work is brilliant, added with the amazing talents of these outstanding Actors, I'm forever grateful for such magnificent performances... I watch them over and over, and never tire of them.. The dialog, and the emotion portrayed by the participants, are perfection personified! Bravo to all! ♥️♥️
Maggie Smith as a highly intelligent woman trapped in a pedestrian existence as a vicar's wife. Mr. Rammish, the Young Hindi grocer briefly shows her a way out, only to move on. What a masterpiece!
“...Why the vicar’s wife has to go to church at all. A barrister’s wife doesn’t have to go to court, an artist wife doesn’t have to go to every performance”
wonderful indeed ,clever words so brilliantly acted ,we believe evey word(I top of a thrill packed morning by taking around meals on wheels) .Thanks for posting
I saw this several years ago on DVD--I must have rented it or something--and I'm amazed to see it again. I can not think of one American actress equal to this performance. Perhaps some of the great British dames of the theater could compare to Dame Maggie, but no American I can bring to mind in the moment.
PERFECT WRITING and PERFECT INTERPRETATION from GIANTS of their craft... (Maggie Smith particularly SHINES in that in that IT'S HARD to portray a character that SHE HERSELF feels indescribably ordinary, and even lost...) You end up loving her, wishing you could even just give her a hug... (That wouldn't be enough...) Not enough for HER either... (And it's not about the sex...) Anything but... Watching THIS, you become INVOLVED... (That's THEATRE...) xx SF
Thank you for posting this. I first saw this when PBS aired it in the 1980s on Masterpiece Theatre, and it is still one of my favourite pieces and favourite performances ever. The brilliance of Alan Bennett's writing is both hilarious and heartbreaking as he creates this character from the Anglican church world he knew so well. And then he had the brilliance to cast Maggie. For me, along with Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, this shows Maggie Smith's phenomenal range in a way that her more recent roles haven't. It shows her talent and timing so much more than she's been given the chance to do n her senior years. She's hilarious in Downtown Abbey and brilliant in her line delivery, but it doesn't need the range that this piece does. I have heard other actors do this role, both on radio and on stage in New York. Nobody has come anywhere close to what she does with it. She can go from a hilarious line to making you cry within a split second, and the final moments are devastating. Brava, Maggie! Bravo, Mr. Bennett, for your writing and superb direction.
I've never seen Talking Heads. They are undoubtedly riveting, but... geez, they make life in the UK seem like the most grim, joyless, empty sort of existence.
Brilliant. I've seen the "Talking Heads" monologues play at Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago and am familiar with Alan Bennett and many of his contemporary British writers who I really admire. Never heard of this piece. I was thinking how wonderfully written by Alan Bennett, how wonderfully delivered and acted by Maggie Smith and whoever the director was did a wonderful job behind the scenes. Then read in the credits afterward the director was none other than Alan Bennett himself.
I can't help wishing they hadn't refilmed these. They have none of the freshness of the original Talking Heads, and not one play is improved upon. Don't really know why they did it. If you can, get hold of the real thing.
Absolutely. But did you see version 101 of Talking Heads? She was even better, as were Thora Hird et al. I still don't quite understand why they felt the need to redo them. Could be something quite basic like the original films degenerating or whatever. Please don't think I'm dissing Maggie - never!
This is actually "the real thing," when they were first produced for BBC TV in the 1980s. No other video version was done before this one. So not sure where you're getting your information.
@@nickwyatt9498 nope. this is the original. I actually taped it on my VHSmachine when it was broadcast in North America on Masterpiece Theatre in the 1980s, and this is the same performance. I know because I fell in love with this performance so much I showed it to many Anglican friends. I had heard something about them being redone in more recent years, but this performance dates back to the 1980s. I do recall reading that they were re-done recently, but this is the original. Alan Bennett himself also did one at the time, called A Chip in the Sugar, which was also filmed and is on RUclips. Also from the 1980s.
What would drama be without the church, symbol to writers of every hypocrisy in life? I’m tired of them using the church for this when hypocrisy exists in the freest most liberal agnostics.
I have six streaming platforms but i usually end up on youtube watching this sort of obscure masterpiece.
Maggie Smith later performed this monologue on stage in the West End. She had such a great command of the audience that she managed to double the laughs, often simply with a look that created anticipation of a wicked observation to come, and therefore provoked a laugh where there certainly wasn't one in the script. It was a masterclass in comedy.
I just watched this again and noticed that there is an empty glass on the kitchen table in the opening shot. The writing, the performance and the direction are all in perfect alignment.
Heaps of kudos given to Maggie's acting and Alan's writing, and rightly deserved so. But I also like to give credit to the director and the camera work done on this as well as the music by the great George Fenton. None of them had that outsized ego to stamp some narcissistic individuality on this piece that could have ruined it altogether. Instead they tread very lightly and give the lightest of touch to it and the rest of the series, resulting in the perfect touch. Nothing unnecessary, nothing over dramatized (camera, pacing, music, etc), so what we get is the masterpiece in perfect form, no gilding of the lily here. Very tasteful really. Thank you for this.
The director was also Alan Bennett. Nice that he was able to handle the adaptation of his own writing. So many writers aren't happy with what happens to their scripts after the directors take over.
I cherish all Maggie Smith performances, but this one has stuck in my head. My old VHS tape is long gone. So happy to find the performance here.
Maggie Smith has the ability to hold us in the palms of her hands, while she mesmerizes, entrances and manipulates our feelings and psyche. There is no one like her. Bravo Ms Maggie Smith.
Heh heh heh....you said palms, like Palm Sunday!
Dame Maggie Smith, if you please. 💜
Dame Maggie put on an acting clinic with this. The moment towards the end when her voice catches when she talks about Mr. Ramash leaving, was absolutely brilliant. It only lasted about two or three seconds, but it was absolutely powerful.
Incredible how Alan Bennett makes the story so sad and so funny at the same time And genius level acting from her of course
+grai It's called Talent!
When Maggie performed this in Perth (Australia), the audience was in stitches after the first line. I've never seen anything like it. Her timing is miraculous.
An oldie but goodie. Seeing this series when originally broadcast in 1987 turned me on to the genius that is Alan Bennett
I was lucky enough to see Dame Maggie perform this live..... she cracked up an entire theatre with the simple line, “Big day for you....” Only the best actors can do Mr Bennett’s lines justice.
The flower arrangement scene retold is brilliant. The sarcasm that drips from her lips.......
This is why I am addicted to RUclips. I'd heard about "Talking Heads" but had never seen any episodes. I have seen Dame Maggie in many films and saw her onstage once. If I see her name, I will watch. But this is a side of her I'd never experienced, which makes it all the more stunning. I knew Alan Bennett was an incisive writer...this is ... I count myself beyond fortunate for having seen this tonight.
MsSoundguy %zzzzz
Dame Maggie Smith is one of the few that deserves to be called Dame in absolutely every sense of the word. She is a national treasure!
I am thrilled to find this on RUclips. I remember this from the original broadcast. There are so many lines I remember but when I watched it again I realized Maggie's pauses are as poignant as the words.
always worth a rewatch, I will never get tired of this. The ending lines give me chills
My God, it's been YEARS since I first saw the "Talking Heads" series, and for my money "Bed Among the Lentils," starring the incomparable Maggie Smith, is the best of them, though Patricia Routledge's "A Woman of No Importance" runs a close second.
I don't think I have ever seen Maggie Smith give less than a wonderful performance in anything she has done. And to do so in a solo monologue is a miracle of the actor's art.
I could not agree more.
Saw it on stage some 20 years ago. It was one half of a performance called Talking Heads. Along with this play Margaret Tyzack performed a piece called Soldiering On. Both of them were exquisite. They don't make them better than this.
'Jeffrery's bad enough but I'm glad I wasn't married to Jesus.' What a great opening line!
A wonderfully written piece done by a geat actor. Perfection.
I was riveted by Dame Maggie in this. Such a small story and a large one at the same time.
Dame Maggie smith is beyond brilliant
Have been looking for this for years. My original tape was worn out. She was stupendous. Without doubt the greatest actress of our time. Cheers.
+mark prescott You can get it on DVD or CD.
Tim Forbes Ta mate, will start looking around. Cheers.
I am mesmerized... The talent here is simply out of this world. What an amazing, awe inspiring performance. I feel as if I am in a hypnotic trance. She is absolutely majestic. Thank you so much for posting this.
I watched this years ago on PBS and have never forgotten the brilliance of the dialogue and of course, Maggie Smith. It occurred to me to look for it online and to my absolute joy was able to enjoy this masterpiece once again.
Just another reason why I love Maggie Smith.... I held on to every word she spoke
For the masses who only know and love Maggie Smith for her old dowager bitches, for her flying hands and rubber wrists (all of which is lots of fun, no argument), HERE is the genius under the camp. She hardly moves her body, and it is impossible to look away. She knows this wistful woman who has no self-pity right down to the slightest nuance, and never does she seem to be saying "Watch me Act!" The monologues of her pastor's wife are rich with irony and loss, but not bitter. Her change in the final scene made me almost cheer at the screen.
Not the Wind in the Willows. Transforming the alter into a scene from Bambi.. a booby trap..Riotous laughter from here for sure. O love Dame Maggie Smith's delivery of scabious wit so quietly... She is boundless with talent.
Genius. Writing and performance.
WOW!! I love her, I just love her playing....more please :-)
Holy Mother of God! She is unworldly--so nuanced, so good. What a performance.
This for me is one of my favourite performances by her, equalled only by the feature film The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, in which she is also superb.
@@Broadwaybuff-pi1qg Indeed ... how right you are!
The INCOMPARABLE Maggie Smith. Superlative writing, unbelievably talented delivery.
I had the pleasure - thrill, actually - of seeing Maggie Smith onstage when I lived in NYC.
In Tom Stoppard's "Night and Day" and Noel Coward's "Private Lives". In those plays as in this one, she was extraordinary.
Not surprisingly, Dame Maggie is extraordinary Thanks you for posting this.
Allen Bennett's work is brilliant, added with the amazing talents of these outstanding Actors, I'm forever grateful for such magnificent performances...
I watch them over and over, and never tire of them..
The dialog, and the emotion portrayed by the participants, are perfection personified!
Bravo to all! ♥️♥️
A master class in how to act for the television camera. Bravura.
Bennet. Smith. Absolute legends. Both still with us. ❤❤❤
Her timing is perfect, everytime, she is just amazing
Maggie Smith as a highly intelligent woman trapped in a pedestrian existence as a vicar's wife.
Mr. Rammish, the Young Hindi grocer briefly shows her a way out, only to move on.
What a masterpiece!
The rendition of flower arrangements at the church was just too tongue in cheek funny. Dame Maggie is unequivacable in any and all roles.
I've been looking for this film for years. It doesn't seem to be listed on most film collections, not even Netflix. It is a gem!!
Eleanor Walden Amazon has both "Talking Heads" series in a DVD box set for around £15, I believe. Well worth the money!
Brilliant Maggie Smith!
so so so amazing I'd forgotten how powerful these are. The script and the perfromence as well.
Absolutely sublime, both script and performance.
“...Why the vicar’s wife has to go to church at all. A barrister’s wife doesn’t have to go to court, an artist wife doesn’t have to go to every performance”
I have never seen the sublime Maggie Smith do better than this - ever! She is a truly wonderful, fabulous actor.
She is magical!
Gosh! What an incredibly intelligent, sensitive and beautiful performance! An artist of the highest degree!❤❤❤
Excellent. Was good to see it again after all tis time. Thanks Penny.
Marvellous
Wonderful! Thank-you ❤
I have no words to describe how gloriously and deliciously brilliant this is...
Will always love Dame Maggie Smith...just feel bad for not discovering her many many yrs ago.
Thank you for sharing!
An amazing actress. Timeless
Amazing! Brilliant!!! So Maggie!
my gawd the woman is a national treasure
Kate McClintock she's a global treasure! 😃
Let's split the difference and say she's a national treasure in every nation on the earth.
Amen!
Brilliant. Thanks for the upload.
Perfection on every level!
Alan did an outstanding job on these monologs.
You just can't beat the "great dames" of Britain! Incredible!❤❤❤
Superb writing... Brilliant performance!!
Maggie Smith, we - the lesser mortals - salute you !!!!!
wonderful indeed ,clever words so brilliantly acted ,we believe evey word(I top of a thrill packed morning by taking around meals on wheels)
.Thanks for posting
Brilliant!
I saw this several years ago on DVD--I must have rented it or something--and I'm amazed to see it again. I can not think of one American actress equal to this performance. Perhaps some of the great British dames of the theater could compare to Dame Maggie, but no American I can bring to mind in the moment.
oh Meryl Streep could do it. 30 years ago.
@@harmoniabalanza She's American, and while good at accents, just wouldn't understand the entire world of this woman the way Maggie does.
PERFECT WRITING and PERFECT INTERPRETATION from GIANTS of their craft... (Maggie Smith particularly SHINES in that in that IT'S HARD to portray a character that SHE HERSELF feels indescribably ordinary, and even lost...) You end up loving her, wishing you could even just give her a hug... (That wouldn't be enough...) Not enough for HER either... (And it's not about the sex...) Anything but... Watching THIS, you become INVOLVED... (That's THEATRE...) xx SF
Thanks. seen Allenl Bennet's monologues.enjoyed it very much. thanks again,
the lady in the yellow van the two of them again. i love that film. watched it so many times. class act both of them
Genius writer, absolutely masterful performer
Superb Smith. Superb Bennett!!!
Brilliant performance.
Thank you for posting this. I first saw this when PBS aired it in the 1980s on Masterpiece Theatre, and it is still one of my favourite pieces and favourite performances ever. The brilliance of Alan Bennett's writing is both hilarious and heartbreaking as he creates this character from the Anglican church world he knew so well. And then he had the brilliance to cast Maggie. For me, along with Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, this shows Maggie Smith's phenomenal range in a way that her more recent roles haven't. It shows her talent and timing so much more than she's been given the chance to do n her senior years. She's hilarious in Downtown Abbey and brilliant in her line delivery, but it doesn't need the range that this piece does. I have heard other actors do this role, both on radio and on stage in New York. Nobody has come anywhere close to what she does with it. She can go from a hilarious line to making you cry within a split second, and the final moments are devastating. Brava, Maggie! Bravo, Mr. Bennett, for your writing and superb direction.
I also loves her in My House in Umbria. Brilliant
Thank you, that was fabulous.
"The Sermon was about Sex - I didn't actually nod off though I had herd it before" ......the best soliloquy ever - too funny xxxx
Outstanding.Thank you for posting.
The tension and stifled acrimony of flower arranging.
Who, in our current "cavalcade of stars," can equal this performance. Few, if any, I suspect.
Emma Thompson is the only one I can think of who is equally good at comedy, tragedy and subtlety. I'd love to hear her do it.
It is a formidable talent to make the everyday humdrum seem like revelation.
Poor Mrs vicar
maggie smith is the most amazing woman!
This is beautiful.
Amazing!
Magnificent actress
Superb, thank you for putting these on .fantastic and thought provoking.
Oh my gosh so enraptured by her presence
I've never seen Talking Heads. They are undoubtedly riveting, but... geez, they make life in the UK seem like the most grim, joyless, empty sort of existence.
Figaro Hey! Where does human life exist without grimness, joylessness, and emptiness? It's all simply a part of being human.
I think that's the point Alan Bennett is trying to make entirely.
It has nothing to do with the UK specifically.
You're missing the humour in them.
There is a huge amount of humour in this. Did you not get the jokes?
Brilliant. I've seen the "Talking Heads" monologues play at Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago and am familiar with Alan Bennett and many of his contemporary British writers who I really admire. Never heard of this piece. I was thinking how wonderfully written by Alan Bennett, how wonderfully delivered and acted by Maggie Smith and whoever the director was did a wonderful job behind the scenes. Then read in the credits afterward the director was none other than Alan Bennett himself.
AMAZING + Thank God for Mr Ramesh Ramesh
My heart is broken.
I can't help wishing they hadn't refilmed these. They have none of the freshness of the original Talking Heads, and not one play is improved upon. Don't really know why they did it. If you can, get hold of the real thing.
Smith is superb. Bye.
Absolutely. But did you see version 101 of Talking Heads? She was even better, as were Thora Hird et al. I still don't quite understand why they felt the need to redo them. Could be something quite basic like the original films degenerating or whatever. Please don't think I'm dissing Maggie - never!
This is actually "the real thing," when they were first produced for BBC TV in the 1980s. No other video version was done before this one. So not sure where you're getting your information.
Nope, they're remakes.
@@nickwyatt9498 nope. this is the original. I actually taped it on my VHSmachine when it was broadcast in North America on Masterpiece Theatre in the 1980s, and this is the same performance. I know because I fell in love with this performance so much I showed it to many Anglican friends. I had heard something about them being redone in more recent years, but this performance dates back to the 1980s. I do recall reading that they were re-done recently, but this is the original. Alan Bennett himself also did one at the time, called A Chip in the Sugar, which was also filmed and is on RUclips. Also from the 1980s.
Really puts you off drinking!
Wow!! Heartbreaking and so real!
If you despise your husband, his work, and everything he stands for, it might just be time for a divorce.
Olive As unhappy as she is being the neglected vicar's wife, one has the impression her life would be even emptier and unhappier without even that.
Easier said than done when this was written
A divorced Anglican priest is forced to give up the priesthood!
A true wonder! Love her!
BRILLIANT
She never blinked once during the long prayer.
Wonderful
Judith Hearne redux.
yep, that was great
Also in the new talking heads
What would drama be without the church, symbol to writers of every hypocrisy in life?
I’m tired of them using the church for this when hypocrisy exists in the freest most liberal agnostics.
the church becomes a scapegoat, yes. but we must all look to our own hearts really, that's the hard part.