Wuthering Heights, the flagship

It looks like ITV is going through a rough time economically speaking. In order to try and better the situation, their new Wuthering Heights will be the season's flagship, according to the Guardian:

He [Michael Grade] will be hoping that upcoming productions, including a remake of the cult 1960s TV series The Prisoner, starring Ian McKellan and Jim Caviezel, a lavish new production of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and the return of staples such as I'm A Celebrity ... , will pull in the viewers and lure back advertising money. (Richard Wray)

Tamar Yellin, a well-known Brontëite, is interviewed by the Jewish Ledger.

Q: How did you come to identify as both a “Yorkshire lass” and a Jew?
A: As a child, I read a lot of 19th-century English literature and became infatuated with the Brontë sisters. I now live a mile from Haworth Parsonage, where they lived. I have a dual identity: I am in love with English literature and the English countryside, and I am very Jewish; I have a large family in Israel. I especially love the countryside around where I live n it’s open, bleak, lonely, with a few trees. It’s a place where I feel free and very spiritual: the solitude is very spiritual and the sky is huge and you watch the clouds move and it’s always changing; the light is always changing and it’s inspiring. I find spiritual nourishment in Judaism, but there’s a large part of me that’s pagan as well. I have a deep love of the Israeli landscape, but it’s not as accessible as the English landscape: I’m afraid of scorpions and snakes and heat; there’s nothing to be afraid of in the English landscape. (Cindy Mindell)

The Adelaide Independent Weekly reviews Robert Schnakenberg's Secret Lives of Great Authors.

Schnakenberg has done his research, presenting each author’s life in a few-page summary and then individual anecdotes in bite-sized chunks with punny headlines. Aside from the trash, he has uncovered genuinely interesting details about some of the Western world’s favourite writers and debunked a few common myths. For example, Ernest Hemmingway never ran with the bulls in Pamplona because leg injuries sustained during World War I meant he couldn’t run. No great scribbler seems safe from Schnakenberg’s wicked pen: Shakespeare, the Bronte sisters, Oscar Wilde, Emily Dickinson, Lord Byron, Mark Twain, Gertrude Stein, JD Salinger, Jack Kerouac, Franz Kafka and Sylvia Plath all cop a serve. Amusing at first, it makes for quite depressing reading by the final page. You could be forgiven for thinking there had never been a great writer or poet who didn’t have a problem with alcohol, mental health, drugs, rampaging egotism, weird sexual fetishes or a combination of the lot. Quirk Books RRP $24.95. (Georgia Gowing)

Personally, we would add a question mark after 'has done his research' given how he has opted for the legendary, when not purely imaginary, version of things at least as far as the Brontës are concerned.

Twilight, by Stephenie Meyers, continues attracting comparisons to the Brontës' works. Such as today in the Miami Herald and a few other newspapers:

Romance. Edward Cullen, our vampire hero, is as dashing as his namesakes, Charlotte Bronte's Rochester and Jane Austen's Ferrars. His relationship with Bella borders on Romeo and Juliet, but we are all hoping for a happier ending. (Elizabeth Price)

The Journal of Pearland has an alert for students of the Pearland High School wishing to take part in a stage version of Jane Eyre:

Pearland High School thespians will transport audiences from English moors to American baseball fields during the 2008-09 theatre season.
Kicking off the season will be “Jane Eyre,” the classic tale of an English governess who falls in love with her mysterious employer. Show times are Sept. 18-20 and 25-27 at 7 p.m.
Auditions for “Jane Eyre” will take place Thursday, Aug. 7, 9 a.m. to noon, in the PHS auditorium. Students should memorize a one-minute monologue and prepare for cold readings. The first cast meeting will be Friday, Aug. 8, 9 a.m. to noon.
The musical comedy “Damn Yankees” will debut Jan. 16-19 and 22-24 at 7:30 p.m.
Students will perform their spring show May 7-9 at 7 p.m., with student-directed one-act plays running May 21-23 at 7 p.m.
For more information, contact PHS theatre director Kimberly Robb at robbk@pearlandisd.org.

Hurry up if you're interested - the audition is today!

As for the blogosphere, Suite 101 has an article entitled 'Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights: Darwin's Theory of Sexual Selection as Applied to Catherine Linton'. A Work in Progress discusses the first few pages of Charlotte Brontë's Shirley. Book after book after book posts several Brontë suggestions. And Sentido y Sensibilidad - in Spanish - has read Jane Eyre and has found several name-related similarities to Jane Austen and her works.

Categories: Alert, Books, Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Theatre, Wuthering Heights