Emily Brontë getting drunk in Malibu

Tamasha's Wuthering Heights performances in Harrogate are reviewed by the Yorkshire Post:

Wuthering Heights ***
Following the success of Bride and Prejudice, loosely adapted from Jane Austen's novel, it was only a matter of time before one of the Brontë sisters was given the Bollywood treatment.
Tamasha, a theatre company which has already had success with productions like East is East, decided on Wuthering Heights, taking the action from the Yorkshire moors to the desert of Rajastan, swapping the snobbery of Victorian England for the caste system of India and including a few songs and dance numbers on the way.
The result is very much a Brontë-lite production. Cathy is the headstrong Shakuntala, Heathcliff the street urchin Krishan, but both lack the original intensity and as their love story turns to tragedy, there's a distinct lack of emotional impact.
Certainly there is a lot of room from improvement. The score is occasionally woeful, the acting at times a little wooden and the lack of a big Bollywood number at the end is unforgivable
However, it's a production which is also easy on the eye. The choreography is seamless, the set, if someone has managed to fix an erratic door, simple and beautiful and the story, which makes no claims to be a faithful adaptation, entertains from start to finish.
For all the minor flaws, the real problem for Tamasha may well be the theatre in which they decided to premiere their new show.
In a town as wealthy as Harrogate, there's really no excuse that its only theatre has been allowed to become an unloved museum piece.
Buildings like it are costly to maintain, but even when it has had the cash, it seems to have spent it unwisely. Whichever bright spark decided turquoise velvet seats were just the thing to sit against the traditional plush red colour scheme has hopefully now exited stage left. Sadly, against this backdrop of chipped plaster and an auditorium which is as hot as Mumbai, a sumptuous Bollywood production can only ever sit uncomfortably. (Sarah Freeman)

The writer of this production, Deepak Verma is interviewed on Kirk Originals Eyewear:

Did you just wake up one morning and decide to write and direct a Bollywood style musical?
No! I’ve always been fascinated by the character of Heathcliff. He was the “outsider” who had to work ten times as hard as all those around him – like me in a way.
Why did you pick Emily Brontes ‘Wuthering Heights?’ instead of, lets say, Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’?
Mainly for the Heathcliff’s character. Also, Jane Austen is not passionate of dark enough for me.
Have you ever been to Yorkshire Moors?
No – but doing Bronte Goes to Bollywood has given me a real yurning to go and explore the Moors.
Are you a romantic at heart?
Yes. Very much!
Do you think Emily Bronte would give ‘Bronte Goes to Bollywood’ the thumbs up?
Yes. Its loyal to the characters and their journeys – and we are all very affectionate towards the story.
Bollywood film productions are usually BIG affairs. Did you find it easy to translate into a live stage performance?
No. It was a long process but with the collaboration of the Tamasha Theatre Company and lots of research we have a fabulous project on our hands.
The stage version is a great success. Is that why you headed off to the Oscars earlier this year? Is there a film version in the pipeline?
Yes there is. It’s only at the “talking about” stage at the moment so who knows!

Opera News reviews the recent Midsummer Night by Kate Royal and makes the following statement (with which this half of BrontëBlog cannot agree more):

Listening to Royal's fine performances of Britten's tower scene from The Turn of the Screw, the magnificent "At the haunted end of the day," from Walton's Troilus and Cressida, and "I have dreamt," Cathy's moving aria from Bernard Herrmann's woefully underperformed Wuthering Heights, one can't help but be reminded of a time when those who were in the business of presenting new opera put the music first. If the audiences weren't always there for them, if the academic establishment was too busy castigating them because they weren't serialists to notice that they were producing some really fine music — well, the composers shouldn't be blamed. (Brian Kellow)

The Mirror interviews ITV boss Peter Fincham who says the following about the period drama ITV crisis:

In these tough financial times, drama is a harder genre to commit to at the levels we have been used to as it's so expensive to make (Heartbeat, The Royal and Primeval have been axed while a planned adaptation of A Passage to India was also canned). But we will do more period drama. Wuthering Heights will be shown later this year and I had a meeting yesterday about an important new period drama series. (Nicola Methven)

As Kelly pointed out on a previous post it is rather strange that Wuthering Heights 2009 appearance on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK is apparently scheduled for next September 7th when everything seems to point to a later British airing.

Not the only Brontë sighting today in The Mirror as Haworth, we mean "a village in West Yorkshire that was home to the Brontë sisters" appears in today's Quizword.

The Times reviews McNaughten by Siân Busby introducing an Emily Brontë reference:

There is verisimilitude in the book's form as well, with an intricacy and sentimentality worthy of Dickens; alternating narrators reminiscent of a Brontë; and a satirical eye as sharp as Thackeray's. (Melissa Katsoulis)

The Basingstoke Gazette reviews the Basingstoke comedy night at Jan Jack’s latest Laughter House in The Red Lion Hotel, Basingstoke. One of the participants is the Irish Grainne McGuire whose routine includes an Emily Brontë impersonation:

The Irish Grainne McGuire had a chummy style and ironic wit, and created wonderful image of Emily Bronte writing letters in praise of people she hated when she was drunk.

Christopher Caldwell talks about copyright issues and sequels (still following the recent Salinger affaire) in The Financial Times:

Many novels deploy other writers’ characters: John Gardner’s Grendel, Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea (a spin-off of Jane Eyre), the late George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman series, which draws from Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s Schooldays, and Charlie Higson’s Young Bond books, to name just a few.

It seems that Kristina Foden-Vencil, from the Oregon Public Broadcasting News, cannot be considered a Brontëite as can be deduced from this comment on the English, Baby! website:

It’s different from the English lessons you might remember at school. But that’s the point. It’s meant to be fun and perhaps a little more engaging than Charlotte Bronte’s ‘Jane Eyre.’

Exactly the opposite of Tara Entwistle-Clark from the Boston Books Examiner who chooses Wuthering Heights for her summer reading recommendation list:

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: Twilight fans! This is for you. Here is the original story of the bad boy and the woman who loves him, despite all of the forces of the world around them working against them.

And the author Hazel Statham, who is interviewed on Blogcritics Books:

What is your favorite book at the present?
Can I cheat and tell you my three favorite books? At 16 I found Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and it has remained my absolute favorite throughout the years. Then came Georgette Heyer’s These Old Shades, and more recently Laura Kinsale’s Flowers From The Storm. These three books are my main ‘comfort’ reads and have traveled all over the world with me as well as into hospital on several occasions. They’re very well traveled books and I have more than one copy of each of them. (Dorothy Thompson)

El Diario Vasco interviews author Tamara Cadena. Another Brontëite (romantic, no capital R, faction):

Y mira que si nos ponemos a hablar de 'Cumbres borrascosas'.
- Por Dios, ¡me muero! De hecho, que sentí morir cuando un compañero de trabajo me dijo después de leer mi novela: «De ahora en adelante tú serás mi Emily Brönte». ¿Te lo puedes imaginar? ¡Me estaba comparando con la escritora de una historia de amor que atraviesa no sólo el tiempo sino la frontera entre la vida y la muerte.
- Heatchliff y Cathy... Son de los nuestros, ¿verdad?
- Para siempre. Te lo repito, me fascina esa capacidad de decidir que la pasión que te quemaba por dentro cuando estabas viva te seguirá quemando después de muerta. (Begoña Del Teso) (Google translation)

In La Nación (Argentina), Juana Libedinsky comments on the recent edition of Wuthering Heights targeted to Twilight fans connecting it with the recent casting of Ed Westwick as Heathcliff:

Si uno se acerca a la estantería de best sellers de literatura adolescente, entre los libros de la serie de vampiros Crepúsculo -el gran éxito de Stephenie Meyer, fenómeno cultural que fue comparado con el de Harry Potter-, aparece una novedad que realmente a muchos pone los pelos de punta: Cumbres borrascosas , presentado con un diseño gráfico en negro y colorado, con letras góticas para que parezca parte del conjunto de libros de Meyer cuyas tapas son en ese estilo.
Para que no haya ninguna duda sobre la estrecha relación, en la imagen de la portada se aclara: "¡El libro preferido de Edward y Bella!", en referencia a los protagonistas de Crepúsculo , que citan frases del clásico de Emily Brontë en la tercera entrega de la historia de amor entre el joven Nosferatu y la adolescente del noroeste norteamericano.
Si bien Meyer misma confesó inspirarse en el clásico, y Bella puede ser vista debatiéndose entre Edward y Jacob (el hombre lobo confiable) de la misma manera que Cathy se siente tironeada entre Edgar (el candidato que prefiere su familia) y Heathcliff (a quien consideran diabólico), puede ser difícil ver parecidos reales. Aun así la maniobra publicitaria, que comenzó en Francia y que ahora se ha trasladado del otro lado del Canal de la Mancha, ha resultado increíblemente efectiva. Según The Guardian, las ventas de Cumbres? ( Les Hauts de Hurlevent ) aumentaron en un 50% en el país galo desde que, el año pasado, se lo ubicó en las librerías junto a los libros de Crepúsculo y continúan en ascenso. En el país de origen de las hermanas Brontë, el efecto no fue tan marcado, pero los vendedores aseguran que Crepúsculo ha despertado un renovado interés por el gótico victoriano.
Todo esto se enmarca, naturalmente, dentro del debate de cómo acercar los clásicos a los adolescentes. Poco tiempo atrás, un autor contaba que su interés por la literatura había despuntado al encontrar un estante alto en el que sus padres habían intentado poner fuera de su alcance El amante de Lady Chatterley , Trópico de Cáncer y demás obras subidas de tono. Aseguraba que de haber estado La guerra y la paz allí lo hubiera leído también, porque nada despierta más el interés que lo que parece prohibido.
Sin embargo, la forma más tradicional de todas de acercar un clásico a los adolescentes (o las adolescentes) ya está también puesta en marcha respecto a Cumbres borrascosas . Hollywood ha anunciado una nueva versión en la pantalla grande con el galán de la serie televisiva "Gossip girl" (sobre un sofisticado secundario de chicos ricos neoyorquinos) en el papel del salvaje Heathcliff de los lúgubres páramos de Yorkshire. (Google translation)

Nu.nl finds Brontë echoes in C.E. Morgan's All The Living:

En Aloma staat qua gevoelsleven beslist op één lijn met personages uit het werk van Jane Austen of de gezusters Brönte ― zij als een Jane Eyre en Orren als Rochester. (Google translation)

The Frisky begins an article about YA novels and teen series like this:

There’s lots of literary esteem to be held for classic coming-of-age stories like Little Women or Jane Eyre. (Leonora Epstein)

Jane Eyre is, of course, much more than a coming-of-age story, but we get the point.

Let's end this newsround with the following suggestion for a new Jennifer Aniston movie made by The Guardian:

In the spirit of wresting back control of her destiny, perhaps it's time she pitched some new Aniston projects to the studios:
Jane Eyre in Malibu
Brad Rochester locks his raven-haired, tattooed and quite mad former lover in the attic and rekindles his romance with Jen Eyre, the governess with lovely hair whom he stupidly jilted in favour of the lady in the loft. (Julia Raeside)

On blogs: Cup-Bound and Scalding (the blog of Sian Griffiths whose first novel Borrowed Horses, still unpublished, is a contemporary retelling of Jane Eyre) posts a poem inspired by Jane Eyre. Precisely, Simplicitas has read Charlotte Brontë's novel. Finally, Maud Newton reviews Lilian Pizzichini's The Blue Hour on The Second Pass.

Categories: Brontëites, Humour, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Opera, Poetry, References, Theatre, Villette, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights