The Night Heron Reviews
'… You can see several influences at work on this weird play: among them Britten's Peter Grimes and Rudkin's Afore Night Come, which both deal with victimisation of the outsider. That in itself is fine and Butterworth both writes eccentrically funny dialogue and ceates a memorable character in Bolla, who is superbly played by Jessica. She recites Marvell's The Garden and menaces a special constable with equal power. Stevenson is at her hilarious best explaining how Bolla's loathing of students stems from the fact that her mother was a bedder who had to clear away a toff's rubber johnnies while "he was busy off somewhere singing in Latin".' - The Guardian.
From The Royal Court Theatre website.
"Butterworth also writes eccentrically funny dialogue, and creates a memorable character in Bolla, superbly played by Jessica Stevenson. She recites Marvell's The Garden, and menaces a special constable with equal power. Stevenson is at her hilarious best explaining how Bolla's loathing of students stems from the fact that her mother was a bedder who had to clear away a toff's rubber johnnies while "he was busy off somewhere singing in Latin"." - Michael Billington
From the Guardian website.
"Something much rarer is taking place at the Royal Court, where a soaring performance by Jessica Stevenson gives wings to The Night Heron. As soon as Stevenson lopes in, jutting-jawed, stony-featured, quick-tongued, she casts a flare over Jez Butterworth's new play. Her character is part-con (she is fresh from Holloway) and part-comrade: in the apocalyptic vocabulary of the play, this puts her somewhere between angel and witch, and gives her an affinity with the visiting bird of the title.
Stevenson manages to make this strange creature credible, using apparently simple, ordinary touches, of the kind you see often on television but scarcely ever on the stage: when anxious, she retreats into the collar of her fleece like a tortoise into its shell. At the same time, she is never normal: at once stolid and threatening, she is magnificently weird and extraordinarily funny. She gives the play its keynote." - Susannah Clapp
From The Observer.
"The lodger is a truly memorable character, memorably played by Jessica Stevenson – a tough ex-Holloway Prison convict called Bolla Fogg. Her irruption into their lives precipitates the comic, and in the end tragic, denouement. The device which gets them there is the fact that Griffin is trying to write a poem for a £2000 prize offered by Cambridge university, and in prison Bolla learned many poems by heart, including Marvell's "The Garden", which to the amazement of the two gardeners she recites." - AC Grayling
From Online Review London
"Jessica Stevenson' "well 'ard", ex-prisoner Bolla is as rough, candid and well intentioned as she is delightful, the big surprise being her familiarity with the poetry of Andrew Marvel. When she changes out of her trousers to appear in fishnets and a very short skirt to go out with Griffin, she keeps the butch, legs apart stance but all this toughness is belied by the obvious care she has taken with her appearance. Her observation about the traffic around the Cambridge colleges, "Bet it's easier to get in to study Greek than it is to get your car in" sums up the tension between "town and gown" - Lizzie Loveridge
From CurtainUp.com
"I saw Jessica in The Night Heron at the Royal Court (London, SW1) with Ray Winstone, another brilliant actor. It was hilarious but it is not really a comedy. She did such extraordinary things with her voice that every time she opened her mouth it was really hard to keep it together because she was so funny and yet, at the same time, completely rooted in reality." - Natasha Little
From My cultural life: Natasha Little - The Times
"In addition, the scary Bolla, just out of prison for an unnamed offence, comes to lodge in the barn. She is played by Jessica Stevenson, voted last year's best comedy actress for her TV performances in Spaced, The Royle Family and Bob & Rose.
The cult of the personality really overtook the audience. It is not every actor that can raise guffaws of laughter merely by walking off a stage. Her acting style is bombastic. She shouts her lines and this illuminates the part of a woman who has spent a long time in solitary confinement failing to be heard. Bolla is surprisingly erudite but not a woman to cross.
Bolla not only needs to reassess her own life but also makes her landlords take stock." - Philip Fisher (2002)
"Looking Back: The 2002 Theatre Year in Review
Jez Butterworth's strange tale of Fenland folk, The Night Heron (with a terrific performance by Jessica Stevenson as the strangest of them)" - Mark Shenton
From Whats On Stage
"They get more than they bargain for, however, when they take in Bolla Fogg, especially when she hatches a plan of her own to help Griffin with his entry for a Cambridge University poetry competition....
These are wonderfully realised characters, wonderfully performed by Karl Johnson (Wattmore), Ray Winstone (Griffin) and especially the hilarious Jessica Stevenson (Bolla)." - Mark Shenton
From Whats On Stage