Brontë detox

A couple of newspapers remind us of the PBS rerun of Jane Eyre 2006. Firstly, The Enquirer (Cincinnati)

In two weeks, "Masterpiece" will launch its big and (mostly) splendid project of putting all six Jane Austen movies back-to-back. To get us in the mood for plush period pieces, it reruns this lush version of Charlotte Brontë's novel. Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens are made to seem like a very plain Jane and a dashing Rochester. Opposites clash and meet in an involving story. (Mike Hughes)

And secondly, Los Angeles Times:

Thornfield Manor: Ruth Wilson gives an inspired performance as the plucky orphan hired as a governess in "Masterpiece Theatre: Jane Eyre"

The Pioneer Press summarizes the best theatre of 2007 in the Twin Cities area:

"Jane Eyre," produced by the Guthrie Theater
The G's literary, large-scale staging of "Jane Eyre" was such a solid and strong adaptation of a beloved novel that you're almost willing to give the theater a mulligan for the noodle-limp production of "The Great Gatsby" that opened the new building.
The success started with Alan Stanford's scrupulously faithful stage adaptation, which gave us not one but three Janes - the orphaned youngster, the wise matron looking back on her life and the young woman who lives the major events of the play. It continued with John Miller-Stephany's well-measured staging that found the humor, the drama and the pathos of the tale.
And it culminated with a pair of performances by Stacia Rice (in the title role) and Sean Haberle (as the mysterious Mr. Rochester) that gilded and built on the imaginations of countless readers, along with a supporting cast without a weak link. (Dominic P. Papatola)

Louis Wise writes in The Times a satiric piece proposing an 'arts detox' program for 2008:

Think it over: you have the best intentions, but, each year, your cultural diary seems an accumulation of heavy costs, disappointing experiences, long slogs and a sense of déjà vu. So, here are some tips for a 2008 “arts detox”: not to do less, but to do better. (...)
ONE TO AVOID
What can only be described as “moral pornography”. Take the misery memoir, in which it is somehow assumed that the amount of abuse the author received as a child correlates with the quality of their writing. Reader, it does not. The excuse was tired when the Brontës were pulling it, and it is exhausted now.

Well, in our humble opinion... reader, it depends. On the creator's talent, basically.

Finally, a Polish translation of Agnes Grey has been posted here.

Categories: Agnes Grey, In the News, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Theatre, Translations