East Riddlesden Hall in Wuthering Heights

The Keighley News has an article on the shooting of two of Mammoth Screen's recent productions - Lost in Austen and the forthcoming Wuthering Heights - at the same place: East Riddlesden Hall (check also these previous posts of ours)

Film crews adapting Emily Brontë and Jane Austen books for the small screen descended on East Riddlesden Hall.
They carried out location shoots for current ITV series Lost in Austen and a forthcoming version of Wuthering Heights.
Lost in Austen, which has a modern girl trapped in the plot of Pride and Prejudice, was filmed at several historic Yorkshire properties.
The crew spent two days at East Riddlesden Hall and the 17th-century manor house’s interior was dressed to reflect the later Regency period.
Mammoth Productions, which made the series, was impressed enough to return to film the upcoming TV version of Wuthering Heights.
Samantha Lawson, the hall’s visitor services manager, said its dark-looking sandstone was perfect for the imposing setting of the Brontë novel.
She said: “In the book the house is set on the moors, so a lot of clever artistry and fake sets have been used to place the hall in the moorland background.
“The grounds were dressed with heather, so many local visitors may not recognise the hall at first glance.”
Shooting took place at night and during the open visitor season for more than a week, involving a large cast and crew, children, dogs and horses.
“It was stunning watching the horses take the path up to the main house but staff at the hall are becoming accustomed to the strange requests of film crews,” she said.
“The hardest task is keeping the entire property silent — visitors, ducks and nearby traffic being difficult to pre-empt.”
The hall’s Great Barn was also used as a stable block and the shoot went well with many volunteers and staff keen to see the result next year.
East Riddlesden Hall remains open for visitors until the end of next month.
Lost in Austen is currently showing on Wednesdays on ITV, at 9pm, and Wuthering Heights is due to be aired early in 2009.

Bear in mind that the Keighley News goes online with a short delay and so Lost in Austen's final episode was broadcast last Wednesday. We are also interested to notice that they point to early 2009 for Wuthering Heights, rather than November 2008, as had initially been announced. (Picture source)

On other TV news, the Los Angeles Times compiles several reviews of the show Little Britain USA:

Alynda Wheat of Entertainment Weekly cautioned: "Jumping into 'Little Britain' with the U.S. version is like kicking off a Charlotte Brontë book club with 'Villette.' The material's solid, but it won't convince the newbies. Huge in its native land, Britain leaps to HBO with new characters (we dig the ambiguously gay bodybuilder duo), returning faves, and American guests like Rosie O'Donnell. Funny, but better material ships next week, so hang on."

Quite true, to be honest. Villette is outstanding but people with no previous Brontë background tend to find it slow.

The Liverpool Daily Post says,

Elvis and the Beatles are now associated with their cities in a manner which could be compared to that of Shakespeare and Stratford-upon-Avon, Johann Strauss and Venice, Mozart and Salzburg and the Bronte sisters and Haworth, West Yorkshire. (Bill Gleeson)

Not just compared, but they are also probably getting more visitors than either Stratford-upon-Avon or Haworth are!

Reuters reports about a new Japanese fad, curiously described as:

You can call it Jane Eyre meets the Addams family, but for the hundreds of Japanese girls who dress in Victorian dresses trimmed with lace, eyes rimmed with heavy black makeup, it's "Gothic-Lolita." (Hiro Muramoto)

We must say, though, that neither Jane Eyre nor the Addams family had a soft spot for pink as far as we know.

And finally Live for the outdoors posts a few beautiful pictures of Haworth and the moors.

Categories: Haworth, Movies-DVD-TV, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights