Blue Stockings (NHB Modern Plays)

By Jessica Swale

A moving, comical and eye-opening story of four young women fighting for education and self-determination against the larger backdrop of women's suffrage.

1896. Girton College, Cambridge, the first college in Britain to admit women. The Girton girls study ferociously and match their male peers grade for grade. Yet, when the men graduate, the women leave with nothing but the stigma of being a 'blue stocking' - an unnatural, educated woman. They are denied degrees and go home unqualified and unmarriageable.

In ?Blue Stockings?, Tess Moffat and her fellow first years are determined to win the right to graduate. But little do they anticipate the hurdles in their way: the distractions of love, the cruelty of the class divide or the strength of the opposition, who will do anything to stop them. The play follows them over one tumultuous academic year, in their fight to change the future of education.

'Cracking... leaves you astonished at the prejudices these educational pioneers had to overcome' Guardian

'Lively and eye-opening' Independent

'Touching and entertaining... Swale tells the story with both wit and a hint of righteous indignation' Telegraph

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Sep 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781780012612

Jessica Swale

Jessica Swale is an Olivier Award-winning writer, director and film maker. She trained at Central School of Speech and Drama and the University of Exeter. Jessica began her career spending a happy decade as a theatre director, during which she founded and Red Handed Theatre Company, with whom she won Best Ensemble in the Peter Brook Empty Space Awards and multiple Evening Standard Award nominations. She then began writing. Her first play, Blue Stockings, premiered at Shakespeare’s Globe in 2013. It is now one of the most performed plays in the country, and is featured on the GCSE Drama syllabus. She is currently writing the TV series. Jessica’s next play, Nell Gwynn, won her an Olivier Award for Best New Comedy and transferred from the Globe to the West End, starring Gemma Arterton. She is currently writing the screenplay for Working Title. Other plays include Thomas Tallis (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse), The Mission and adaptations of The Jungle Book, Sense and Sensibility, Far from the Madding Crowd, Stig of the Dump and The Secret Garden. Now working primarily in film and television, she both directs and writes for the screens – original works and adaptations. Screenplays include Persuasion for Fox Searchlight, Nell Gwynn for Working Title, Longbourn for Studio Canal and an original rom-com for Blue Print Pictures. Her first film, Horrible Histories the Movie, premiered in 2019 and was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Feature for Children. Her directorial debut feature, Summerland (also writer), starring Gemma Arterton, premiered in 2020. She also wrote and directed the internet hit Leading Lady Parts, a short film promoting equality in film, starring Arterton, Felicity Jones, Emilia Clarke and friends, for the BBC and Rebel Park Productions. You can watch it on YouTube. Jessica is an associate artist with Youth Bridge Global, an international NGO which uses theatre as a tool for promoting social change in war-torn and developing nations. As such, she has lived in the Marshall Islands and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, directing Shakespeare productions including The Comedy of Errors, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night and The Tempest. She has written three titles in Nick Hern Books’ popular Drama Games series: for Classrooms and Workshops, for Devising, and for Rehearsals. She is also an active campaigner for greater equality and diversity across all dramatic media, and an active member of Times Up and the Me Too movement.

Reviews for Blue Stockings (NHB Modern Plays)

[Dukeoflemonade · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's a very intense play that demonstrates what early women scholars had to go through to get rights for themselves. I was really surprised by Lloyd's character and how destructive he is. Overall I think that the play had great pacing and it wasn't too wordy! Well done!

[spiralsheep · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Jessica Swale demonstrates a strong grasp of individual characterisation, balanced by her understanding of social change through history.One of the most socially powerful of the main female characters believes we should fight first for improvements perceived as most likely to be achievable in the shorter term. Women's education is her chosen cause, which she insists on separating from women's political rights. History consistently proves this position inadequate. Women won the right to vote in 1918 and 1928, but weren't allowed Oxbridge degrees until 1921 and 1947. The token working class female student is also very realistically sacrificed for the benefit of middle class ideologies (that undermine feminist solidarity).The play is also a witty theatrical entertainment, with relatable characters.