Please Rewind Talent Wall

Annabel Maule

Annabel Maule is a British stage and film actor whose life and career are closely tied to the theatre. Born in Lambeth, London, on 8 September 1922, she was the daughter of theatrical director-manager Donovan Maule and Mollie Shiells. Her brother, Robin Maule, was also an actor. The phrase “grew up on the stage” is especially apt in Maule’s case. Her family established its first theatre company in 1948, four years before the Kenya National Theatre, and played a fundamental part in developing the arts in Kenya. That background gave Maule a relationship with performance extending well beyond individual roles: theatre was both her profession and a central part of her family story. Her stage career included a West End appearance in His Excellency during 1950 and 1951. She is also recognized as a film actor, although theatre remains the clearest thread running through the documented shape of her work. Rather than separating her career from the world in which she was raised, Maule later made that history the subject of a book. Published in 2004, Theatre Near the Equator: The Donovan Maule Story recounts her family life and preserves the story of their theatrical work. The book’s title neatly captures the unusual reach of Maule’s experience, connecting her London beginnings with the development of theatre in Kenya. Maule turned 100 in September 2022. Her career is best understood through that long association with performance: as a British actor on stage and screen, a West End performer, and a member of a family that helped establish a theatrical culture far from the London stage where her own story began.