MADC opens its new season with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie directed by Chiara Hyzler at Blue Box Theatre, Msida.

“Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.” So speaks Jean Brodie, the liberated and charismatic schoolteacher in an all-girls school in Edinburgh in the 1930s.

Eccentric, egocentric and charming, Brodie believes that in 1930 she is in her prime and this perception influences her teaching that becomes all the more idiosyncratic and personal.

She ignores the standard curriculum and teaches her students about art, culture and politics in line with her own passion for culture and knowledge, concentrating her efforts on a small group of favoured girls, her “Brodie set”.

Miss Brodie develops them culturally, confiding in them and they become loyal and admire her. These include the beautiful Jenny, a timid Mary MacGregor and the sharp-witted Sandy, who watches carefully as Miss Brodie instructs her charges to “do as I say and not as I do!”

Miss Brodie manipulates and brainwashes them into following all her ideologies instead of those of the school. The play follows her journey and the consequences of her actions with the staff and on her set.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is described as a gripping, entertaining, powerful drama of adolescence and adulthood, of betrayal and manipulation, and the powerful, lasting effect of a charismatic teacher.

Jean Brodie is played by Julia Calvert with Jasmine Farrugia as Sandy, Taryn Mamo Cefai as Jenny and Kyra Lautier as Mary MacGregor.

The cast includes Sandie Von Brockdorff, Jonathan Dunn, Stefan Farrugia, Katherine Brown, Ninette Micallef and Michael Mangion.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie runs from Friday to next Sunday and from October 14 to 16 at Blue Box at M Space, Msida (Opposite entrance to Junior College). Booking online www.bluebox.com.mt, tel: 2124 6644 or 7979 3737.