Radio Times has on its web the synopsis and the cast of the first episode of tonight's Jane Eyre. Brocklehurst's identity is finally revealed !Dramatising as beloved a novel as Jane Eyre is fraught with pitfalls, given the potential audience of tutting malcontents watching like hawks for every painful snip at Charlotte Brontë's text. Now, I know it's only episode one, but so far this appears to be a thoroughly sympathetic and engaging version of the mighty classic. All right, so little orphan Jane's early years with her horrible aunt, then at the grim Lowood School are dealt with in the first, brisk 15 minutes. And poor Helen Burns, Jane's best friend, is quickly disposed of after the rapid onset of a particularly nasty case of Costume Drama Cough. But that's fair enough; we need to get grown-up Jane (the excellent Ruth Wilson) to Thornfield Hall and her fateful meeting with Mr Rochester (a similarly compelling Toby Stephens). Already the sexual tension between the two is sizzling, and the eerie atmosphere is building nicely, thanks to those strange
noises coming from the attic....
RT reviewer: Alison Graham
The Jamaica Gleaner publishes an article about Jean Rhys, and Wide Sargasso Sea is commented like this:
Jane Eyre - Ruth Wilson
Rochester - Toby Stephens
Mrs Fairfax - Lorraine Ashbourne
Grace Poole - Pam Ferris
Mrs Reed - Tara Fitzgerald
Young Jane Eyre - Georgie Henley
Mr Brocklehurst - Richard McCabe
Helen Burns - Hester Odgers
Adele - Cosima Littlewood
John Reed - George O'Connell
Eliza Reed - Bethany Gill
Sarah - Samantha Siddall
Bessie - Rebekah Staton
Miss Temple - Charity Wakefield
George - Ned Irish
Sophie - Elsa Mollien
Celine Varens - Eglantine Rembauville
Jean Rhys's work is disturbing on many levels. She writes of a composite heroine, the Rhys Woman - a lost and alienated figure who haunts the streets of Paris or London and who exploits her sexuality for a living. This lonely, bitter, and passive figure appears in all her novels except Wide Sargasso Sea, where she is transformed into a Caribbean heiress who has been virtually sold to the Edward Rochester figure from Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Rhys conceived of this novel as a way of talking back to the imperial text, creating a history and a humanity for Bronte's mad Bertha, Rochester's first wife who was locked in the attic of Thornfield Hall and who existed in Bronte's novel as a plot device to enable the Englishwoman Jane Eyre to save Rochester and eventually marry him.And finally, Newsweek publishes an article about upcoming biopics and Angela Workman's Brontë is also mentioned.
Hi Rosie,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your good wishes but unfortunately we are not in the UK so we will have to wait yet to watch it :(
Hopefully you all will keep us entertained with your reviews...
Indeed - you're terribly lucky!
ReplyDeleteThat line made us laugh over here!
Haha, so you were worried about them changing a few lines but don't mind the "beautifying" of Rochester, eh? :P
ROFL!! That was fun.
ReplyDeleteI guess it's hard to balance between handsome and ugly since Rochester is neither. It would be very hard to pick a "plain" actor and get the audience to eventually like him physically like Jane does. So they have gone for a handsome actor. Of course it makes the "do you think me handsome" interview a bit awkward...
Haha! Interesting theory :D
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