In Brontë Country

Brontë Country is the star of today's newsround. Haworth will be staging a Fair Trade Fortnight, starting next Monday, as reported by The Telegraph and Argus:

People will be able to sample fair trade chocolate at the Bronte Parsonage Museum and Bronte Weaving Shed in Haworth this month.
The venture is part of Haworth’s Fairtrade Fortnight celebrations and will take place for most of the day on Saturday, February 28.
There will be a quiz about fairtrade and Haworth, with entry forms available for collection at the Tourist Information Centre, in Main Street. The winner will receive a hamper of fairtrade goods, donated by Oakworth Co-op.
Also, cafes in Haworth will be serving refreshments made from ethically-purchased ingredients and there will be a fairtrade ‘Chuffin Fair’ at the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway’s Oxenhope engine shed at 6.30pm, attended by Bruce Crowther, who launched the nationwide movement of fairtrade towns. He was recently awarded an MBE.
The event will also include a raffle, music and a fashion show.
Rita Verity, of Haworth Fairtrade group, said there were only a limited number of places available for the fair. Anyone interested should call her on (01535) 647776.

The Haworth Village website provides more details on the events.

If you are looking for something to do this weekend, The Telegraph and Argus also suggests a visit to Victor Buta's Alter Ego exhibition at the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

Haworth will also soon benefit from a local marketing campaign, according to the Keighley News:

Brontë Country should benefit from a marketing campaign designed to raise the profile of Pennine Yorkshire, according to Jackie Bennett, of Bradford Council's tourism department.
She said this was a joint project between Bradford, Kirklees and Calderdale councils, which would also take in Hebden Bridge, Holmfirth, Ilkley and Wharfedale.
She said brochures had been printed and distributed and a new website — pennineyorkshire.com — would be launched early next month.
Mr Mitchell said travel journalists visiting Brontë Country must be kept informed about the area’s public transport.
He was responding to Ms Bennett’s report on recent media interest in the region.
She said a freelance journalist was visiting Haworth for an item on the Brontës for Sky Travel.
In addition to this, she said 12 journalists had visited the village last month as part of the British Guild of Travel Writers annual meeting. Mr Mitchell said these journalists needed to know it was possible to visit Haworth by leaving cars in Keighley, then taking the bus. He said cutting down on the number of cars travelling around made good sense. (Miran Rahman)

The easier the better, of course, but you'd think journalists could take a bit of 'research'. We are pretty sure that a lot of tourists/visitors manage to find their way to Haworth from Keighley by bus.

And that's not all. The Keighley News also reports how a visitor guide of the Bradford district is 'frustrating'.

A Bronte Country Partnership member said he was frustrated that the latest edition of the Bradford District Visitor Guide did not treat Keighley as a separate destination. [...]
Haworth, Cross Roads and Stanbury parish councillor Barry Thorne said the guide made little reference to the potential market provided by the disabled.
He said advertising attractions as being accessible to those with physical disabilities did not answer the concerns of the larger numbers of people who had learning disabilities.
“Physical access isn’t the issue for about 70 per cent of people with disabilities,” he added.
He said appropriate training for attraction staff and a statement in the guide explicitly welcoming disabled visitors would go some way towards addressing the problem.
Partnership chairman Samantha Lawson said if amending the guide was difficult due to cost, the BCP might be able to offer some financial support. (Miran Rahman)

Still in the UK, What's On Stage is getting ready for Tamasha's adaptation of Wuthering Heights:

Tamasha Theatre Company, formed in 1989 as a partnership between director Kristine Landon-Smith and actor/playwright Sudha Bhuchar, have announced the full cast and tour dates for their 2009 musical adaptation of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. The production will tour the UK from 13 March – 20 June and is a Tamasha and Oldham Coliseum co-production in association with the Lyric Hammersmith.
The hot, scorched desert landscape of Rajasthan is the setting for Tamasha’s evocative musical interpretation of Emily Brontë’s timeless tale of passion, jealousy and revenge. 1770s Rajasthan, with its rigid social hierarchy, inequality of wealth and Victorian influences, is an ideal location for this story of passion corrupted by prevailing social values. In place of the cold moors, the wild scorched expanse of the desert provides a symbolic setting for the doomed love affair of Shakuntala and Krishan (Cathy and Heathcliff from the original novel). Tamasha hope that the musical will fuse a Bollywood cinematic treatment with other more classical elements of a western musical.
For the tour the lovers will be played by Youkti Patel and Pushpinder Chani. They will be supported in the cast by Adeel Akhtar, Shammi Aulakh, Rina Fatania, Anil Kumar, Divian Ladwa, Sheena Patel, Davina Perera, Gary Pillai and Amith Rahman.
The nationwide tour will begin on 13 March at the Oldham Coliseum Theatre and will continue on to venues including Exeter Northcott (7-11 April), Citizens Theatre Glasgow (21-25 April), Northern Stage Newcastle (27-30 May), Nuffield Theatre Southampton (2-6 June), Belgrade Theatre Coventry (9-13 June), Harrogate Theatre (16-20 June). It will also appear for an extended run at London’s Lyric Hammersmith from 29 April until 23 May.
The original concept for the musical was created by Deepak Verma. Kristine Landon-Smith directs while the music is from Felix Cross and Sheema Mukherjee with lyrics by Felix Cross. (Kate Jackson)

On the blogosphere, Flightless Bird writes about Wuthering Heights and Not-So-Gentle Reader gives the 1992 screen adaptation a B+. Boktradition posts about Jane Eyre in Swedish and In depths discusses Jane Eyre's quest for independence.

Categories: Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, Theatre, Wuthering Heights