Brontë Boys and Girls

BBC Leeds News announces the premiere next April of a new theatre play about Branwell Brontë: The Brontë Boy by Michael Yates.

Encore's next production, in April 2011, is the world premiere at the Carriageworks of The Brontë Boy, by Michael Yates. The account of the life of Branwell Brontë will also be performed in Bradford and Halifax.
In The Brontë Boy, Michael Yates’s tragicomic drama, young Branwell, who once ruled an imaginary world, is now a man, grown mad trying to cope with the real one. Having failed as a poet and painter, as doomed in love as he is in literature, he slips ever more quickly down the road of drink, drugs and despair. His loving father Patrick and talented sister Charlotte fight a last-ditch stand for his salvation, but it is Branwell’s sinister friend, gravedigger John Brown, who threatens to have the last word in this ultimately terrifying take on the brilliant family we have read so much about and all thought we knew so well.
Directed by Colin Lewisohn and playing in the Studio.
Photo: Warwick St John as Branwell, Melanie Dagg as Charlotte and Eddie Butler as gravedigger John Brown. (Bradford Playhouse)

EDIT 19/01/2011: YouTube user FluffyShrekGirl has now uploaded a trailer of The Brontë Boy. The trailer also says that the play will be broadcast some time in early 2011 on BCB - Bradford Community Broadcast. Neverthe

The trailer for upcoming radio play 'The Brontë Boy', produced by Encore Theatre Company, about the life and times of Branwell Brontë. The radio play will be broadcast sometime in early 2011, followed by a stage version of the play being performed at the Bradford Playhouse 8/9 April, Leeds Carriageworks 14-16 April and Halifax Arts Chapel 20/21 April. Voiced by Warwick St. John (Branwell Brontë), Melanie Robinson (Charlotte Brontë), Vicki Glover (Emily Brontë), Hayley Briggs (Anne Brontë), Asadour Guzelian (Patrick Brontë) and Eddie Butler (John Brown). Pictured (L-R): Warwick St. John, Melanie Robinson, Eddie Butler. Trailer voiceover: Colin Lewisohn.

EDIT: The play is being broadcast now (since January 17)  by the internet radio Audiobook Radio:

All days: Part 1: 8.21 am / pm and 2.21 pm / am
Part 2: 11.59 pm/ am and 5.59 pm / am

The New York Times publishes another obituary with Brontë links. Flo Gibson (1924-2011) prolific narrator of thousands of audiobooks who also recorded versions of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

Mrs. Gibson was also praised for her meticulous preparation (to tackle the Brontë sisters, she haunted Yorkshire to soak up dialect) and for the intimate compact that appeared to exist between her and the listener. As she often said, she approached every narration as if she were playing to an audience of one. (Margalit Fox)

Paul Daniggelis writes in El Paso Times about Joan Quarm's legacy to the Brontë Society:

When the U.S. branch of that Society divided the U.S. into 10 regions, it fell upon Joan Quarm to lead the small number of Brontë Society members here in the Southwest. She demurred. Her plate was too full.
She asked if I would undertake representation. I did and the first issue of my Newsletter contained an interview of Ms. Quarm.
A gathering of Brontë members was organized to meet and "talk Brontë" in Santa Fe. My wife and I were pleased to escort Professor Quarm to Santa Fe, where former El Pasoan, Ms. Mary Dare Resley Ellis, a long-time friend of Joan's, had prepared a marvelous reception for her guests.
Joan Quarm researched and wrote a massive treatise (1,000-plus pages) on the Brontë's, material she used for her many lectures. She never sought to publish these papers which had become disarrayed over the years (before computers, mind you).
I offered to arrange the papers for her and see to it that they were safely ensconced in the vaults of the Haworth, England-based Society. As chance would have it, Ms. Linda Medlock Teran, a local Society member with British roots, offered to carry the documents on a visit home.
I discovered among those papers an unpublished article wonderfully written by Joan that I insisted must be published in the journal Brontë Studies. "Pink Silk and Purple Gray: Charlotte Brontë's Wish-Fulfillment in Villette," appeared as the lead article in the March 2006 issue.

The paper also remembers that the recently appointed New Mexico Secretary of Energy, Harrison Schmitt, was one of those directly involved in the naming of a Brontë crater in the Moon (check this old post of ours).

Los Angeles Times selects Jane Eyre 2011 as one of the five dramas to see this year:

Fans of period costume drama rejoice as Charlotte Brontë's novel about the plight of an orphaned governess (Mia Wasikowska) receives a new on-screen adaptation. Dame Judi Dench appears in a supporting role. (Gina McIntyre)

Sunday World (South Africa) recommends saving electric power:

Think of Charlotte Brontë and use lamps instead of electric lights. (Nomakula Roberts)

The Plantwoman's column of the Houston Chronicle has a Brontë reference today:

I also read A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick. This is a wonderful book to read when it is cold because it takes place in the cold, cold winters of Wisconsin in 1907 and 1908. It's a terrific book - a kind of gothic bodice-ripper/psychological thriller. It might remind you, as it did me, of Daphne du Maurier and the Brontë' sisters.

The New York Times talks about the former Singapore prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew:

His most difficult moments come at the end of each day, he said, as he sits by the bedside of his wife, Kwa Geok Choo, 89, who has been unable to move or speak for more than two years. She had been by his side, a confidante and counselor, since they were law students in London.
''She understands when I talk to her, which I do every night,'' he said. ''She keeps awake for me; I tell her about my day's work, read her favorite poems.'' He opened a giant spreadsheet to show his reading list, books by Jane Austen, Emily Brontë, Rudyard Kipling and Lewis Carroll as well as the sonnets of Shakespeare. (Seth Mydans)

Allan Ellenberger posts on Hollywoodland an interview with Margaret O'Brien who remembers her role as Adèle in Jane Eyre 1944:

AE: In 1944 MGM loaned you out to 20^th Century -Fox to do “Jane Eyre” (1944) with the legendary Orson Welles. What was that like?

Margaret O’Brien: I loved wearing the costumes in that film because I would usually get the poor bedraggled costumes, and this was one time that I got to be dressed up and wear the wig with the curls. Also, on all my movies I never wore make-up, but on this one they put a little pancake make-up on me. I thought that was the greatest. Of course, I loved wandering through the sets. I was always fascinated, even as a child, by antiques and ancient times. I always felt I should have been born in the 17^th or 18^th century. They really had a big stone castle with authentic furniture. (Read more)

Laura's Review Bookshelf reviews positively April Lindner's Jane; Period Films posts several icons of Jane Eyre 2011; Aurel Media posts several Jane Eyre book covers and The Amateur Writer and Mary Book Reviews are reading the book; One sketch every week! posts a couple of pictures of Haddon Hall; Armas de Fuego y Rosas Perfumadas posts about Wuthering Heights (in Spanish), a book that Daydreamer to Writer hates.

Categories: Books, Branwell Brontë, Brontë Society, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Theatre, Wuthering Heights