Flea loves Helen

Brontëites all over the place. We knew that Michael Balzary, best known as Flea, the bassist of Red Hot Chili Peppers had read some Brontës, but we were quite surprised to realise the depths of his Brontëiteness. From Los Angeles Times:

What about solo work for you?

I’ve been making a record at home and it’s nearly done. It’s mostly instrumental stuff but I have Patti Smith singing on it and the choir from the school but mostly it’s an instrumental record. I’m not sure how to describe it but a lot of people have described it as cinematic, like soundtrack music. It’s not really a commercial enterprise, it’s not going to be on rock radio or anything. The record is based on the character Helen Burns from "Jane Eyre." I love Charlotte Bronte and all of the Bronte sisters. (Annie Wells)

We will be alert to more news about this project.

The Star Phoenix (Canada) asks some authors about their favourites books:

Jane Urquhart

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I read it when I was nine and had to skip every second word because I didn't recognize it/them, but I understood enough to be fully enchanted. I loved the children Heathcliff and Cathy in the novel and also the way everything went wrong between them. I was a strange child. (James Macgowan)

Not such a surprise given that she has a book connected to Emily: Changing heaven.

The Hornsey & Crouch End Journal announces that a local actress is being considered for the role of Jane Eyre in a new production of the Gordon & Caird musical starting in December in London:

Tottenham's 20-year-old singer-songwriter, ballet dancer and actress Eleni Violaris is in the running for the lead role in new West End musical Jane Eyre, which opens this December, having made it onto the shortlist.

It's a new production by the SideShow Theatre Company that will be performed at the Bridewell Theatre. The Village Voice reviewer of A Tale of Two Cities will probably not attend these performances:

At the mercy of that pounding, and of Carlyle's apparent apathy to acting, far too many of the cast settle for dishing out their roles mechanically, like cafeteria food. James Barbour, who was an interesting Rochester in the equally misguided Jane Eyre musical, delivers a complacent, monotonously bellowing Sidney Carton; Natalie Toro's Madame Defarge, so unremittingly evil she makes most Medeas look mousy, sings in a headache-causing screech. (Michael Feingold)

MCV reviews an old acquaintance of this blog: the film Cynara: Poetry in Motion.

My editor nonchalantly handed over this film with the words, “It’s billed as the lesbian Wuthering Heights”. I guess I could just leave it there, knowing that that line would be enough to ward off most people, but I can’t, because unfortunately this film reveals something about lesbian culture that few of us want to see. (Rachel Cook)

MissionVerdopolitian commemorates Branwell Brontë's death anniversary in his own inimitable style, Renčina červená knihovna posts in Czech about Na Větrné hůrce (Wuthering Heights) and Random Jottings of a Book and Opera Lover is visiting Yorkshire, including Haworth and the Brontë Parsonage.

Categories: Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, References, Wuthering Heights