Scarborough, Todmorden, Dublin...

The Times has an article about Scarborough's (property) renaissance. And Anne Brontë's love for the place is not forgotten:

Can you name Britain's first seaside resort? Congratulations to those who said Scarborough. Established as a spa town in the 1620s with the discovery of a mineral spring, the resort took its next step a few decades later when a local physician, Dr Wittie, recommended the benefits of a bracing dip in the sea. By the 19th century, Scarborough was the queen of British resorts, rivalled only by Brighton. Victorians flocked to its imposing spa complex (still there) and fine beaches, while three million came each year into the 1950s. The rise of foreign travel in the 1960s, however, hit Scarborough in the same way it did other UK seaside destinations.
The town's renaissance is driven not only by a renewed appreciation of the British seaside but also by new money from northern financial centres such as Leeds, along with an influx of creative types. Its appeal is clear enough. Wide, sandy beaches curve around the town's two bays - the smarter South Bay, with its backdrop of shops, restaurants and hotels, and the North Bay's more bucket-and-spade appeal. A headland divides the two, topped by a 12th-century castle that overlooks a tiny harbour.
Scarborough has culture, too. Not many seaside towns have four theatres, including the acclaimed Stephen Joseph Theatre, where Alan Ayckbourn has premiered most of his 60-odd plays. You can add a well-regarded jazz festival and Britain's last seaside orchestra. Anne Brontë loved the town and used it in Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I look down on the bay from the balcony of the Crown Hotel, whose Victorian elegance is typical of the town's finest buildings. The nearby Grand Hotel is being restored, while Scarborough has its first boutique hotel: Beiderbecke's. (Norman Miller)

With some delay we report the January meeting of the Todmorden Ladies’ Probus Club where Ian Emberson made a talk. From Todmorden News:

The continuing search for unpublished material surrounding the world-famous Brontë family could throw up some welcome "finds" in the Todmorden area, a local expert believes.
Speaking at the January meeting of the Todmorden Ladies’ Probus Club, Ian Emberson, said that the Brontë sisters had some considerable links with the area.
Their mother’s uncle, the Rev John Fennell, was vicar of Cross Stone during their young lives and Charlotte’s husband, the Rev Arthur Bell Nicholls, was a friend of the Rev Sutcliffe Sowden, who was Mr Fennell’s curate before becoming vicar of Hebden Bridge.
Mr Emberson, a retired music librarian, said it was highly probable that the literary sisters had made a number of visits to the Cross Stone vicarage and that the descendants of people living in the parish at the time could reveal some interesting information that had never before been published.
Mr Emberson and his wife, Catherine, have published “Recollections of the Brontës” by George Sowden, who succeeded his brother, Sutcliffe, at Hebden Bridge. His article had remained virtually forgotten for more than 100 years. They came across the material by chance while researching for an article on Mr Fennell (Brontë Studies 2005).
At the Probus meeting, Mr Emberson, a member of both the Gaskell and Brontë Societies, was assisted his by wife, and together they presented a carefully-crafted talk about Todmorden’s Brontë links, interspersed with readings from letters and other material penned by the Brontës or their friends and acquaintances.
It proved the perfect combination, with Mr Emberson explaining the Brontë story and his wife reading the passages that so brilliantly illustrated the theme.
Mr Fennell was vicar of Cross Stone from 1819 until his death in 1841 at the age of 67. An eloquent tribute by Mr Fennell to his first wife, Jane (Mrs Maria Brontë’s aunt), inscribed on her gravestone at Cross Stone, and Charlotte’s letter to her father while staying with Mr Fennell with Emily, Anne and Branwell were included in the presentation.
Mr and Mr Emberson were thanked on behalf of the Probus Club by Mrs Liz Gore.

A week ago, Mr Emberson gave another talk in Mytholmroyd:

Mytholmroyd Methodist Church, Historical Society 7.30pm, speaker Ian Emberson on The Brontes. (Halifax Evening Courier, February 8)

On The Loy we can read more comments about The Heights, the contemporary setting of Wuthering Heights performed in Dublin by The Playgroup Company:

"I like to call is "making up" rather than devising," says director, Tom Creed, of his latest show, The Heights, a brand new stage version of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.
Or almost a version of Bronte's novel, because according to Creed, the play is as much a homage to movie version of the book, and even Kate Bush's hit single version of the story.
"I think a lot of people feel they know the story of Wuthering Heights, but they haven't actually read the book. Kate Bush, for instance, hadn't read the book when she wrote the song…and the idea for the play came from thinking about the Merle Oberon / Lawrence Olivier film version."
All the same, Creed and company did get the book off the shelf too, although leafing through it has not exactly produced a facsimile version. For a start, The Heights is set in a city…
"The characters in the book have the moors running through their veins. And for a 19th century audience, the moors will have represented something cool and romantic, the sort of place where you could go and just get lost. Today, it is the city that has that quality for me, this place where you can go and disappear..."
And then there is the little business of period. The Heights is set in the 1980s…
"The story is told by the decedents of Heathcliff and Cathy, who we imagine to be living today, so then we imagine that the love story happened more than twenty years ago, which leave us…in the 1980s." (Luke Clancy)

The National Post talks about zombies in films. Our very own Brontë zombie movie (Jacques Tourneur's 1943 I Walked with a Zombie) is mentioned:

The next significant zombie film was refined at its roots; I Walked with a Zombie, a 1943 collaboration between director Jacques Tourneur and producer Val Lewton, is a loose retelling of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. The story of a Canadian nurse who travels to the Caribbean to cure a woman suffering from a strange ailment is free of the genre's more blunt elements, relying on mood and atmosphere to create suspense. (Joel McConvey)

And...
The Pace Press discusses Jasper Ffforde's seminal novel 'The Eyre Affair'. The Tuscaloosa News reviews the performances of Charles Ludlam's The Mystery of Irma Vep at the University of Alabama that we mentioned some days ago. Jane Eyre is analyzed in LeerGratis.com (in Spanish). Also in Spanish, La tormenta en un vaso reviews the recently edited Artemisa edition of Wuthering Heights in Spanish with Balthus's illustrations:

En suma: una cuidada edición, una novela inolvidable y el lujo de contemplar los dibujos de Balthus. Todo un placer. (Banda aparte)

Categories: Books, Brontëana, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Talks, Theatre, Wuthering Heights