Sophia – Sound Stage

Writer: Frances Poet

Director: Janys Chambers

Feminist and scholar, Sophia Jex-Blake holds a unique place in Scottish medicine. With her centenary marked in 2018, a new audio play from Frances Poet examines the events that led Jex-Blake first to fame, then notoriety.

A fiercely intelligent and determined woman, Jex-Blake applied to the University of Edinburgh to study medicine. She was initially granted admission, but this was overturned, stating that it would not be worth putting into place the adjustments needed for “just one lady”. Jex-Blake took this as a challenge and found six other women, becoming the ‘Edinburgh Seven’.

Carefully crafted by Poet, the story of Jex-Blake is told to us in a series of flashbacks, touching on the key moments and people in Sophia’s life. The play itself starts in 1918, six years after Jex-Blake’s death. We meet one of the Edinburgh Seven, Ursula (played by Natalie Grady). She has been contacted by Margaret Todd (Fletcher Mathers) who has written a biography about Jex-Blake. As Ursula was one of Sophia’s closest friends, Todd wants her seal of approval.

Poet hovers between the political and personal with Sophia Jex-Blake: her battle to study medicine is fascinating, and at times, horrifying. The male students were so affronted by the arrival of the women they staged a riot in 1870.

We also learn that Todd’s biography of Jex-Blake, while full of admiration and praise, omits the details of her private life. Jex-Blake formed a long-term relationship with Ursula, and then with Todd herself, but when it comes to expressing what Sophia has meant to her, Todd is unwilling to commit words to paper. Poet’s take on this – the dichotomy of women who are pioneers in their field, but who choose to keep their relationships under wraps – is how progress not only moves slowly, but at different speeds for those who find themselves marginalised.

A multi-award winning playwright, Poet understands how important structure is to creating a framework for audiences to follow. Sophia moves rapidly back and forth between the 1870’s and the 1900’s. Changes in time and place are clearly marked: it is testament to Poet’s story-telling that we are able to easily track where – and when – we are.

Sophia’s richly-drawn characters allow us to feel an emotional connection. The play is aided by excellent voice work from the leads Madeleine Worrall and Natalie Grady who create a very real feeling of love and loss between Sophia and Ursula. The supporting cast including Maryam Hamidi as Isabella Thorne and a moving performance from Clare Perkins as Edith Pechey also build that sense of community so essential for Sophia, struggling for acceptance and recognition. Indeed, Poet’s play becomes more vivid during the scenes where the women are together: talking, studying, planning.

If you are coming fresh to the Jex-Blake narrative, Sophia will have you scrambling to find out more about the Edinburgh Seven and all they achieved. A good biography should always have you going back to the source material, and Frances Poet’s smart, sophisticated play does exactly that.

Available here from 27 to 29 August 2021