The Moron in the Attic

Rebecca Hutchinson as Jane Eyre

The Berwick Advertiser reviews the Hull Truck touring production of Jane Eyre:

Adapting a classic piece of literature can put an ensemble on rather dodgy ground no matter how talented they are but Hull Truck’s adapter Laura Turner, director Nick Lane and a cast of only three not only avoided becoming unstuck, they took Charlotte Brontë’s ‘Jane Eyre’ by the scruff of the neck and produced two hours of enthralling theatre.
I make note of the number of players on the stage as anyone who has read ‘Jane Eyre’ or seen any TV adaptations will know that the story has its fair share of protagonists but this talented trio didn’t just cover all the bases they made each character truly believable.
First mention must go to Rebecca Hutchinson who as heroine of the piece, Jane, never left the stage but at no point looked like she was floundering. She commanded the spotlight like any leading lady should but not in a ‘look at me now’ manner. (...)
Like Rebecca, Andrew and Viktoria rarely left the stage but at no point was there any blurring of personas; each character they brought to life brought something different and unique to the table.

Die Welt (Germany) reviews Flea's Helen Burns EP, which now appears as a CD:

Sechs unfassbar zauberhafte Stücke zwischen Postrock, Jazz und Ambient. "Helen Burns", den Titelsong, singt Patti Smith. Für "Lovelovelove" wurde ein Kinderchor gebucht. Sonst kommt das Minialbum ganz ohne Gesang aus. Flea spielt einfach nur verschiedene Instrumente und den Bass. Fünf Sterne. (Michael Pilz) (Translation) 

Flea's album is also reviewed on Hifi (Netherlands).

The Windsor Star talks about Stephenie Meyer before the opening of her latest film adapation, The Host:

Meyer has credited Austen as one of the inspirations of Twilight (along with Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables), and Austen is one of the authors she turns to for inspiration. (...)
Her favourites are Austen, Brontë and Orson Scott Card ("I think he's really poetic. He writes very beautifully") the author of Enders Game, which has also been turned into a film. (Jay Stone)

Last Tuesday (March 12), Wuthering Heights 2011 was presented at the I Martedì del Festival in Verona, Italy. L'Arena reviews it:

Le nebbie, le piogge, le nuvole basse, il fango per terra, l'umidità opprimono i giovani amanti e i loro sentimenti al pari dei dinieghi familiari. Un clima che permane anche nella seconda parte, dominata anch'essa dai verdi e dai colori freddi, dove pure qualche pallido sole, con lunghe ombre, appare qua e là. Infine i silenzi. Il racconto è affidato alle immagini, pochi e scarni i dialoghi. Il che è quasi miracoloso in un film tratto da un romanzo. Al quale è certamente infedele, ma per costruire una propria reinterpretazione. (G.B.) (Translation)

The Times Literary Supplement reviews the new novel by Kate Atkinson, Life After Life:

Atkinson simultaneously constructs a fictional house and reflects on the tradition within which she works. Fox Corner is an echo of Howards End in E. M. Forster’s novel: a fact apparent to the characters, as well as to the author and readers. Other well-known novels referred to or conjured up in Life After Life – including Jane Eyre, Mansfield Park, The Wind in the Willows – generate complicity between the author and reader: we are watching someone invent a story. There are infinite ways to do this; many have been tried before; no one is pretending otherwise. (Ruth Scurr)

Emma Brockes traces a profile of Philip Roth in The Guardian:

After years of posing for photos like a brooding 60s version of Heathcliff, here he is, a little disheveled, with wonky teeth and a rueful expression, telling stories to illustrate "how childish I am".

The New Zealand Herald visited the shooting of the new Jane Campion work, the mini-series Top of the Lake:

As well as several local faces in supporting roles, including Robyn Malcolm, the series also stars Australian David Wenham as a local cop and Holly Hunter, who Campion directed to a best actress Oscar in The Piano, the haunting Bronte-in-the-bush period film which won Campion the Palme d'Or at Cannes, as well three Academy Awards - one for Campion's screenplay and the other to an 11-year-old Anna Paquin, for supporting actress. (Russell Baillie)  

The Philadelphia Enquirer talks about the premiere of Top of the Lake and also of Bates Motel (next Monday) which includes weird Jane Eyre references:

The series is filled with ironic in-jokes and visual gags out of a bad David Lynch movie. It's hard to tell whether we're supposed to be terrified or laughing, as in a scene in which Norman serenades his mother with a declaration of romantic love out of Jane Eyre - as he helps her dispose of a body.
Is this meant to be a satire? It sure isn't thrilling. (Tirdad Derakhshani)

Today's Daily Mirror Quiz crossword includes a Brontë-related question:

Down 2 : Character in the Emily Brontë novel Wuthering Heights who marries Isabella Linton

Kirstie McCrum reading habits in the Western Mail:

When the mood takes me, I’m happy to delve into the classics – I never tire of re-reading Wuthering Heights, and a recent flirtation with The Great Gatsby was as transformative as an evening at a party with Jay and Daisy themselves drinking mint juleps.

PopMatters reviews the film Ginger & Rosa by Sally Potter:

They inhabit a relentlessly musical film, filled with symphonic colors courtesy of cinematographer Robbie Ryan, responsible for the gritty magical realism of Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights. (Chris Barsanti)

We have a new Luddite in town, Pamela Paul in the New York Times:

News Corporation plans to introduce in schools a new tablet computer that directs a child’s wandering gaze with the on-screen message: “Eyes on teacher.” Perhaps the child would have done just that had he not had a colorful screen blinking in front of his face. Take-home games for the device include one in which Tom Sawyer fights the Brontës. (Lest children avert their attention to the actual books.)

Entertainment Weekly talks about tonight's episode on Fox's Cops:

I'd like to think the man the Kansas City cops find in somebody's attic is just a fan of Jane Eyre, but considering the title of tonight's episode is ''Morons on Parade #6,'' I have to assume otherwise. (Lindsey Bahr)

A Bookish Affair interviews the author Hannah Fielding:

If you could bring three fictional characters with you to a deserted island, who would you bring with you and why?
(...) Edward Rochester, the hero of Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontё: enigmatic, impulsive and sensitive, with psychic powers and a way with words.

La Voz (Argentina) interviews the writer Betina González:

-¿Tuviste en claro desde un principio la historia que querías contar o la fuiste encontrando de a poco?
-Es una novela que, de una manera u otra, siempre llevé conmigo. Es la novela que hubiera querido leer cuando tenía 16 años y era lectora de las hermanas Brontë, del Henry James de Otra vuelta de tuerca, de Alejandra Pizarnik. (Gustavo Pablos) (Translation)

DesignWeek recommends Tom Gauld's book  You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack which includes his Brontë Sisters – the videogame cartoon; The Rockford Register Star reports another student who was a first-runner in the statewide Poetry Out Loud competition with Emily Brontë's Ah! Why, Because the Dazzling Sun among others; The Hamburger Abendblatt (Germany) compares Elizabeth Taylor's Hide and Seek with Wuthering Heights; Science Musings Blog posts about the Brontës; Pens and Paws Auction gives away signed copies of Eve Marie Mont's A Breath of Eyre; CN V5 (in Chinese) posts about Jane Eyre; madmoizelle (in French) reviews Jane, Le Renard et Moi; The Classics Club is asking "Who is your favorite Brontë?"; the Brontë Sisters travels from Thornton to Haworth using Google Earth.