Globe première for Exeter alumna

Jessica has had a successful directing career since graduating from Exeter, being named Britain's “best young director of period comedy” and receiving a nomination for “Best Director” at the Evening Standard Awards last year. Jessica is the Artistic Director of her own theatre company, Red Handed Theatre Company, which she runs alongside her writing and other projects.

Blue Stockings, her first full length play, is set in 1896 and tells the story of four women studying at Cambridge University. Whilst today this would not be unusual, in 1896 these women were amongst the first in the country to go to university and had to fight for their education. The play shows some examples of the hostility faced by these women, from facing violence from their peers to being made to eat in labs surrounded by cadavers. To add to the prejudicial treatment Cambridge refused to allow women to graduate and Blue Stockings centres around the campaign for the women’s right to graduate.

Jessica said, “I for one was, until recently, blissfully unaware of the sacrifices my not-too-distant relations had made to win us that right but the issue at the heart of the play is as pertinent now as ever. As we rehearsed the 1897 protest at RADA last year, we stopped to watch thousands of students march along Gower Street below, holding banners identical to ours: Education For All. It was a disquieting moment.”

Directed by John Dove, Blue Stockings is on at the Globe theatre from August 24.