Theatre
Blue Stockings
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow Neil Cooper
Four stars
The Cambridge ladies of Girton College do much better than their male contemporaries in Jessica Swale's 2013 dramatisation of the struggle to have students graduate from the UK's first women-only seat of learning. Their academic achievements don’t do them much good, alas, in Swale's timely lesson in how, more than a century after the play is set, equality on campus and everywhere else besides should never be taken for granted.
The ensemble of fourteen final year BA Acting students who add fire and passion to Becky Hope-Palmer's production seem understandably galvanised by such a fiercely intelligent work. The play focuses on four young science students at Girton, whose enquiring minds are only occasionally distracted by the over-privileged boys who they must keep a respectful distance from. In the main, however, Tess, Carolyn, Celia and Maeve keep their eyes on the stars that could lead them to infinite possibilities if they are ever allowed the opportunity.
The play itself is a beautifully constructed piece of work. There's a user-friendly charm to Swale's writing that gives the play a power which a more polemical approach might have undercut. The drama looks at class as much as gender, with Sharon Mackay’s Maeve forced to leave her course to look after her family in a way that still reflects the plight of some poor students today. At the centre of the story is the everyday contradictions between science, art, head and heart which Tess, played by Mary McCartney with a sense of perennial curiosity, must square up to if she is to have a chance of greater glories.
While the boys are the Cambridge equivalent of Bullingdon bullies, with Harri Pitches’ portrayal of one little charmer a particularly effective study of arrogance, McCartney, Mackay, Carolina Lopes as Carolyn and Alice Masters as Celia give as good as they get. Arriving at a time when middle-aged men still get to play God regarding rights for women, Swale’s play is an entertainingly serious historical primer that points to how, despite many leaps forward, in terms of education for all, the work is far from done yet.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here