Reviews of Rowan Tree's

BARRY

Review digest 

SUNDAY HERALD 

… full of fascinating acts and suppositions…Jarrett deserves plaudits for a brilliantly sustained performance….the actress has mastered a substantial script in a manner which gives engaging expression to an extraordinary story from woman’s hidden history. 

Mark Brown

THE SCOTSMAN 

There’s no lack of radical thinking in the story behind Frederic Mohr’s Barry, an intriguing solo play first performed in the early 1980s and now revived by the Borders-based Rowan Tree Company…..the beautiful and talented Isabella Jarrett conveys it with great charm and skill, as well as a remarkable physical transformation between two acts.

Joyce MacMillan

THE TIMES  

..if the shock value of the story has diminished, there are still plenty of surprises in this intimate one-woman show.  Chief among them is Barry’s insistence on hand-washing for herself and her staff, along with other basic sanitation and cleanliness……..Perhaps Rowan Tree could take the play around our major hospitals after the tour.

Robert Dawson Scott 

BRITISH THEATRE GUIDE  

The intensity of the play is a direct result of the incredible acting and the intimacy of the space. Rather than watching the action from the back of an auditorium, every single audience member is right there on set, not just in the midst of the action but as a part of it, but then perhaps this is a treat to be expected of Rowan Tree as the company has built up a reputation for superbly crafted small scale productions which it describes as ‘Chamber Theatre’.

Alison Burns

THE HERALD 

Changing genders is the least of the challenges facing actress Isabella Jarrett in this solo performance….. She gives an engaging performance. … what's surprising about Mohr's play is how relevant it feels. In these days of superbug panic, one can't help but admire Barry's prescient insistence on washing hands and sterilising bandages…... On this evidence, Barry was an extraordinary character and pioneering doctor but certainly no feminist, reserving his empathy for the sick while other women fought to earn respect in a man's world.