An intricate story about love that’s almost hate

Leeds-List reviews Northern Ballet's Wuthering Heights, which opens the West Yorkshire Playhouse Brontë Season.

In the context of all this, the innocent freedom of the young couple stands out, and for me, they were the highlight of the first act, but as we moved into the second, our leads came into their own. It’s the first time I’ve seen Dreda Blow taking the lead, and she didn’t disappoint – she’s an extremely expressive dancer, and that was particularly important to this ballet. She captured the joy of her wedding perfectly, but it’s her scenes with Heathcliff where it really pays off, because while their dancing is often reminiscent of their younger days, her face tells a different story.
Equally, Javier Torres excels as Heathcliff. He’s perfectly suited to the rough, dramatic style of the character, and nowhere is that more true than when he woos Isabella. It’s a violent yet magnetic scene, as he kicks, throws and roughly pushes her away, but just like Cathy, the prim and proper Isabella, danced by Rachael Gillespie, is drawn back to him again and again. [...]
Northern Ballet’s Wuthering Heights offers a new take on a classic, and one that is beautifully performed to Claude-Michel Schönberg’s score, so if you’re on the fence about whether to buy tickets, I say go for it. (Ali Turner)

The Reviews Hub gives it 4 out of 5 stars:

Despite making sense of a complicated story, successfully bringing the characters to life, Northern Ballet’s is a very literal translation of Wuthering Heights, where slightly more dance in certain scenes wou
ld be welcomed: the actual ballet element at times feels compromised in favour of storytelling. As mainly a sequence of pas de deux and solo performances, although emanating the bleakness of Emily Bronte’s novel, the corp de ballet scenes, such as the wedding of Cathy and Edgar are very much needed to intersperse some variety into the piece and showcase the talents of the dancers.
The ballet reaches its climax with the demise of Cathy, the desolation of Heathcliff on his beloved moors (which become almost of equal importance in stature to the leading characters, so great is their presence) and the return of the young couple, as they become reunited once more. Finally, the tender side of Heathcliff is revealed through his grief, his incomprehension at being left alone by Cathy. Nixon delivers a classic love story and judging by the sell-out audience, a real crowd pleaser too. (Beverley Haigh)

Maximum Pop selects the novel as one of '10 essential cosy reads to fall for this autumn'.

‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë’s only novel is one of the most famous books in the world, but it’s not the romance everyone assumes it to be.
It’s an intricate story about love that’s almost hate, jealousy, violence and the whipping winds of the Yorkshire moors. You’ve got to read it at least once. (Sophie Waters)

Grazia Daily Describes Andrea Arnold's take on Wuthering Heights as

bleak even by Brontë standards. (Katie Rosseinsky)

The Telegraph has put together a biking tour of England which passes through the Yorkshire moors.

On our last day Claire declares herself my support driver, and I clamber back on my bike, and enjoy a bracing ride over the flanks of Great Asby Scar, a windswept escarpment with moorland views dominated by an imposing limestone pavement.
This is Wuthering Heights country, but its innate bleakness is brightened by a parade of classic cars – I am sharing the road with Appleby Rotary Club’s Tour of Cumbria, and a succession of prized Bentleys, MGs and Austin Healeys sweeps by, driven by men who wave cheery greetings. (Gavin Bell)

Libération (France) interviews crime writer Megan Abbott and  asks her to pick three feminist role models.

Si vous aviez trois modèles féminins à citer ?
Si je m’en tiens aux écrivains, je dirais Emily Brontë, Toni Morrison, Joan Didion. Des auteures courageuses, audacieuses. Qui prennent des risques. (Sabrina Champenois) (Translation)

Revista Arcadia (Colmbia) interviews Rosario Caicedo, sister of writer Andrés Caicedo. She recalls the fact that he was

fascinado con las hermanas Brontë, con su historia, y sobre todo con Virginia Woolf. Yo no tenía ni idea de ella, a nosotros no nos enseñaban Virginia Woolf en el colegio. (Translation)

Bustle describes the romance novel Beauty and the Clockwork Beast by Nancy Campbell Allen as

"Jane Eyre meets Beauty and the Beast," gothic romance and fairy tales collide to create a mysterious romance you and your mother will enjoy unraveling. (Sadie L. Trombetta)

 Singer and songwriter Lydia Loveless tells Columbus Alive that she is

fascinated by the science of attraction. When people’s relationships go wrong … the solution is always to pair off again, like, ‘Girl, you need to get yourself a new man,’ instead of changing the dynamic of how humans interact and how we get affection and feel less lonely,” Loveless said. “But I’m also a super hopeless romantic, and I watch a lot of terrible romantic comedies, and I’ve read ‘Jane Eyre’ like eight times. So part of me is looking at love from this scientific [mindset], like, ‘This system isn’t working people!’ and the other half is like, ‘Oh, if only I could be with Mr. Rochester after his wife burns the house down and we live happily ever after.’ It’s the two sides of my brain battling.” (Andy Downing)

Beliefnet features the self-help book Level Up Your Life by Steve Kamb. The article starts by reminding readers that they are the main characters in their lives.

You are Luke Skywalker.
You are the Goonies. You are Katniss Everdeen. You are Bilbo Baggins, Hermoine Granger, Jane Eyre, and Neo. Your humble beginnings belie the greatness that is within you. You have a destiny, and a role to fill that no one else can. Every experience, every thought, action, regret, and victory has uniquely shaped you like the fingers of a potter at work on a masterpiece. There is no one like you in all the world.
So why does it feel like you’re playing dead body #3 instead of the hero of the story?
Steve Kamb’s inspirational book, “Level Up Your Life,” takes readers out of the backstory of their lives and thrusts them straight into the action by showing us what we can learn from the great adventurers of film, television, and video games. (Wesley Baines)

As a follow-up to yesterday's story about 'dirty doggers' on the moors, The Sun has now dispatched its very own Emily Brontë (who sounds an awful lot like Charlotte, though) to Haworth and the moors to report from there.

Chapter One
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.
Instead we had been driving, and presently we found ourselves on the outskirts of Haworth.
I had heard tell of late of most peculiar occurrences on these very moors.
Some people of the town had reported sounds mysterious and strange, as well as certain items left strewn around that were indicative of vulgarity and degradation.
Nothing could have seemed more out of place in the sweet village of Haworth, a place of singular charm and tranquillity lined with vintage shops and tea rooms.
Gentle reader, I lingered here awhile, hoping only for a tonic for the sort of dangerous passions the moors are said to inflame.
Once I had been comfortably accommodated, I took my cloak, my bonnet and my muff, and returned to my carriage.
My companion and I hastened for the moors, our minds filled with troubling thoughts.
“Miss Brontë,” said he. “Do these surroundings give you a strange sensation? Do they not provoke desire quite unlike you have ever felt before?”
“For shame!” said I. “This is a beauty spot, meant only for the delight of hikers and birdwatchers! You are a most wicked man.” (Emily Fairbairn)

If that wasn't enough, don't miss the accompanying pictures.

Shoshi's Book Blog has a post on Wuthering Heights. The Brontë Parsonage Facebook page has a wonderful picture of curator Sarah Laycock standing by the dress of Charlotte Brontë that will be on display at the Morgan Library exhibition in New York.