Tragedy that put Millie back on the stage at 79
Grieving mum takes to Edinburgh Fringe to reveal her daughter’s sad story
ACTRESS Millie Kieve stands out among the Edinburgh Fringe crowd. At the age of 79, not only is she probably the oldest performer in a crowd made up of newcomers hoping to kickstart a career in comedy or impress festival-goers with their biting satire, she also has little interest in making people laugh.
Because Millie has come out of retirement to take on the most challenging role of her career, reliving on stage the tragedy of her daughter’s turbulent life and sudden death.
And the only ambition on her agenda is a powerful desire to tell people about the circumstances leading up to the loss of Karen at the age of 30.
Millie knows that her production is far from usual festival fare, but she is hoping audiences will be willing to understand and empathise.
“I hope audiences will appreciate what Karen and our family went through,” she says.
Called Cruise to Hell, the show features Millie on stage beside a small table and a few pictures as she embarks on a personal journey of joy and sorrow in an absorbing, gripping 50-minute monologue.
It’s so named because Millie’s nightmare began with a holiday in 1985 when Karen was 20 and studying history at university. The family had gone on a Mediterranean cruise, which made its first stop at Palma, the capital of Majorca.
Millie and her husband Jeffrey were on board with Karen and two of their three sons, Daniel, then aged 10, and Paul, 17. The eldest son, Mark, was back in London holding the fort at the family’s property management company.
The holiday started well and the family were enjoying the food, the sights and the cuisine on the luxury P&O liner.
But Karen was showing worrying signs that she was not reacting well to medication she had been given for a bad stomach.
After the boat sailed from Palma and she did not show up for dinner, they began to get concerned. Their search of the boat failed to find her. Anxious hours ticked on and concern turned to panic.
The cruise line put out a Tannoy message, asking passengers if they had seen someone resembling Karen, and a man came forward to say he’d seen her sitting in a cafe by the port of Palma shortly before the boat sailed. For some reason, she failed to return to the ship.
“It was a dreadful time for all of us,” recalls Millie during a break from rehearsals at Edinburgh. “Everything was running through our minds, including the possibility that she had fallen overboard. For 12 long hours we had no idea where she was.
“There was a huge sense of relief when we learned she could have been in the cafe.
“At least someone had seen her and she appeared OK but we were in the middle of the Mediterranean and en route to Lisbon in Portugal so what could we do?
“P&O were very good. They got someone to go to the cafe and thank
goodness Karen was still there even after all that time. She seemed absolutely fine and not distressed, but she was in another world. P&O arranged for her to be taken to a clinic in Majorca and my eldest son Mark flew out from London to see her there.” Karen told Mark that she felt rejected by Millie and didn’t want to see her, so it was agreed that their brother Paul would fly from Lisbon to join Mark in Majorca. However, Karen’s mental state deteriorated and the family had to arrange for her to be heavily sedated and flown back to London in an air ambulance.
“It was a nightmare for the boys in Majorca but they did their very best for her,” Millie recalls.
“I had noticed during the cruise she was getting very wound up, like a spring that was about to snap. “She was feeling very sensitive that her mum didn’t love her, which was certainly not the case. She was in a very bad way.”
KAREN’S meltdown echoes the recent tragedy of Cambridge University student Alana Cutland, who appeared to suffer a mental crisis while on a Cessna light aircraft over Madagascar.
Despite attempts to restrain her by the pilot and another passenger, Alana opened the door to the plane and fell to her death. Her family believe she had an intense reaction to medication and had no intention of taking her life.
When Karen arrived back in London she was sent to a psychiatric clinic which marked the start of years of drug treatment and therapies.
Millie said: “One drug she was on was like a chemical cosh. Karen felt she was losing her personality. She was not well.
“I think of her life then and it felt like there was a big sledgehammer in the sky and sometimes it would hit her and sometimes it would miss her.
“For six years she was OK, normal, but she did have psychotic episodes. She travelled and did jobs and was
One drug she was on was like a chemical cosh. She was losing her personality and she was not well
Paramedics told me she died instantly. She slipped and fell and didn’t even cry out
enjoying herself, but then she would fall ill again.”
When Karen was well, she had the world at her feet. Sparky and intelligent, she played the assistant to her younger brother’s awardwinning magic act.
But the good times were punctuated by worrying episodes of severe mental illness. Millie is convinced Karen suffered awful reactions to some drugs which made her feel worse, but she felt it was always almost impossible to get doctors to understand.
The family owned a flat in Bournemouth, Dorset, and would go there for breaks. In Karen’s room there was a swivel window FRINGE: Millie, main, and left, in Cannes on a stop on the 1985 cruise with Jeffrey, Karen, Daniel and Paul
with a faulty catch, which was easy to open. It appears Karen stood on a chair, slipped on a silky piece of clothing and fell to her death through the window. “The paramedic told me she died instantly,” said Millie. “She slipped and fell and didn’t even cry out. It was that quick. “She had been feeling dizzy and said she had not taken her sleeping pill.” There was no indication Karen had intended to harm herself and at an inquest her death was recorded as accidental.
Even after all these years, the pain of her traumatic death still haunts Millie, whose husband Jeffrey, a university lecturer, died in 2001.
She is hoping the powerful theatrical experience will give voice to her belief that the side effects of strong prescription drugs can have a devastating and destructive impact.
Karen’s bad reactions to several drugs inspired her mother to set up a charity to help those with similar problems. “The impact is still with us, despite the passage of time,” Millie says.
“This is a one-woman show about how adverse psychological reactions to medicines for physical ailments can drastically change the lives of victims and their families.” Millie only decided to become an actress at the age of 40 after successfully running the family property company.
She did a nine-month tour with Chaim Topol in Fiddler on the Roof, which played in Edinburgh in 1994.
As well as founding the Eastend Theatre Company, Millie also founded the charity APRIL, or Adverse Psychiatric Reactions Information Link, and through that she helps scores of people whose loved ones have been badly affected by medication. ●●Cruise to Hell with Millie Kieve will be on at the Space on the Mile, Radisson Hotel Blu, High Street, Edinburgh, today and nightly until Saturday.Venue box office: 0131 510 2382 Fringe box office: 0131 226 0000. For details about APRIL go to april.org.uk and eastendtheatrecompany.org.uk