Heathcliff around and Jane in Tokyo

Broadcast Now announces that Wuthering Heights 2009 after being shown in the US, Belgium and UK has been sold to several other countries:

New ITV period drama Wuthering Heights has been picked up for broadcast in the US, Canada and Australia.
ITV Global Entertainment has sold the 2 x 90-minute adaptation of the Emily Bronte classic to WGBH in the US, the W Network in Canada, and Australian public broadcaster ABC.
It previously aired in the US on PBS, back in January, as part of the channel’s Masterpiece Classics strand.
The drama, produced by Mammoth Screen, has also been acquired by New Zealand’s TVNZ, Belgium’s VRT, Denmark’s TV2, Holland’s KRO, Sweden’s TV4 and Cyprus’ CYBC.
Further afield, the drama will be shown on Future in Brazil, Mio TV in Singapore and PTS in Taiwan.
The two-part drama, starring Tom Hardy as Heathcliff and Charlotte Riley as Cathy, will also be released on Blu-ray and DVD on 7 September on the ITV DVD label. (Michael Rosser)

Takako Matsu's performance in Jane Eyre. The Musical in Tokyo is commented by Japan Today:

The curtain rose on Takako Matsu’s first ever solo-lead musical performance on Tuesday, in the stage production of “Jane Eyre” at the Nissay Theater in Yurakucho. Matsu, 32, plays the title role of the strong Jane Eyre as she travels through life and love.
In the show, the actress made her first appearance in a wedding dress, and entertained the audience with 22 songs. Matsu said of the performance, “Both the cast and crew are wonderful, and I hope to do my best in making this story come alive.”

WWD interviews Ruben Toledo, author of the recent new covers for Penguin Classics including one of Wuthering Heights:

WWD: Did you get to choose which novels you illustrated?
R.T.: No, but I’m a very lucky man. I really got some gems to work with....What an honor to draw for Emily [Brontë], Nathaniel [Hawthorne] and Jane [Austen] — hope they like ’em. (Elisa Lipsky-Karasz)

Lorrie Moore talks to the New York Times about her new novel project, A Get at the Stairs:

Instead she invoked “Madame Butterfly” and “Jane Eyre,” works that feature themes of abandonment and orphanhood. “I’m interested in adoption because those kids become Jane Eyre,” said Ms. Moore, alternately sipping from a cup of coffee and a small glass of pale Belgian beer. “Not to push the ‘Jane Eyre’ thing too much, but of course there is that racial aspect to it,” she said, alluding to the Creole heritage of the Mrs. Rochester character. “And there’s a racial component to ‘Madame Butterfly,’ so these were the Ur-texts hovering over my desk while I just barreled ahead and wrote a Midwestern story.” (Motoko Rich)

The Birmingham Post reminds us of a Brontë curiosity related to September 1, 1939, the day the Second World War began:

On September 1, 1939, the Alexandra Theatre was holding twice nightly performances of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre but the Post reported that cinemas and theatres were likely to be closed down at the start of the war. (Edward Chadwick)

A judicial conclusion in New York has Brontë references. The New York Post quotes:

The judge said the "sad and unusual facts seem in some ways to spring more from the pages of a Victorian novel like 'Jane Eyre' than from the annals of modern American divorce. (Dareh Gregorian)

Entertainment Weekly talks about the Twilight-oriented Wuthering Heights covers, Richard Wilcocks on the Brontë Parsonage Blog announces the broadcast (next Friday on Channel 4, see our sidebar for details) of First Cut: The Yorkshire Clamper, A Rose beyond the Thames talks about Jane Eyre 2006 and Wuthering Heights 2009, Autocontemplação posts about Jane Eyre (in Portuguese) and 30 Books does the same with Wuthering Heights.

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