The Huddersfield Daily Examiner tells about what's scheduled locally for the bicentenary of Branwell's birth.
The bicentenary of the birth of Branwell, brother of the famous Brontë sisters, will be celebrated at a Calderdale pub. [...]
The celebration is planned at one of his favourite drinking haunts from his time as station master at Luddenden Foot railway station – The Lord Nelson public house in Luddenden village.
Leading the gathering on Saturday, July 1, at 7.30pm is local author Alan Titterington whose recently published novel St John In The Wilderness captures Branwell in his many guises. Branwell recorded his friendship with Alan’s ancestor John Titterington in his Luddenden diaries and painted portraits of him and his wife Mary in gratitude for their support through difficult times.
Also appearing at The Lord Nelson will be folk singer John Bromley (Kimber’s Men) whose solo CD From Higgin Chamber figures in Alan’s novel and was recorded in a studio at Higgin Chamber, Boulderclough, near Sowerby, formerly the home and weaving mill of John and Mary Titterington. This three-storey mill features in the novel and was visible across a wide sweep of the Calder Valley on the night of September 9, 1856, when it was destroyed by fire.
At the Lord Nelson celebration theatre director Gareth Tudor Price will give readings of Branwell’s poetry and his portraits of John and Mary Titterington will also be on display. (Andrew Hirst)
Kent Online reviews Sally Cookson's
Jane Eyre as seen at The Marlowe Theatre ending up on an unexpected, and rather pointless, note.
The problem with Charlotte Brontë's heroine is she just won't wear the victim's smock. She is feisty, belligerent and determined as she discovers her true inner self.
And that struggle has been caught so brilliantly in the Bristol Old Vic/National Theatre's version of Jane Eyre, which is at The Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury until Saturday.
This isn't an adaptation or a simple re-working of the novel. Director Sally Cookson bravely re-invents the character. It is pacy, poignant and packing a punch - this is genuinely refreshing fresh Eyre. [...]
It was hard to believe during the performance of just short of three hours that there was only a cast of 10 - and some of them musicians.
At the heart of the play was Nadia Clifford as the eponymous heroine who grows from desperate child into a woman of substance with an ease that was truly believable.
And while paying homage to the period with smocks, corsets and bonnets, we follow Jane’s journey via a set of ladders, a climbing frame and platforms, from designer Michael Vale.
It is a tale of verve and humour told by a group of wonderful versatile actors who play children, adults and even a scene-stealing dog by the hilarious Paul Mundell as Rochester’s pet Pilot. [...]
And fused seamlessly into the story is music - not Jane Eyre The Musical, but Jane Eyre with music wonderfully performed by Matthew Churcher, Alex Heane and David Ridley, and enriched by Melanie Marshall’s soulful singing.
But it’s Nadia Clifford’s powerful performance as the determined rebel - moving from Jane the downtrodden child to GI Jane, who lets rip with a volley of invective against her oppressors - which is utterly captivating.
By her side is a wonderful ensemble of talent, with Hannah Bristow taking on five roles, Evelyn Miller taking on three and Lynda Rooke as both the vile Mrs Reed and the wonderful Mrs Fairfax. They also voice Jane’s conflicting thoughts.
Evelyn Miller manages to play Jane's friend Bessie, her love rival Blanche and her suitor St John Rivers so convincingly.
And smouldering in the background is the curmudgeonly Rochester, played by Tim Delap, who is drawn to his daughter’s governess like a moth to a deadly flame.
You are left feeling that if a Jane-like figure were alive today, you would hope she would be at the head of Britain’s negotiations on Brexit! (Paul Hooper)
Fallbrook & Bonsall Village News reviews - with some pictures - Roustabouts Theatre Company's
Withering Heights.
Just at the “edge of crazy” is one of the funniest, liveliest shows currently running in San Diego. It’s fall-out-of-your-seat hilarious. Withering Heights brings Emily Bronte’s novel, Wuthering Heights, to life like never before! It is a hoot!
Co-writers Phil Johnson and Omri Schein have taken what seemed like a really, really bad idea and turned it into brilliant one.
Exercising expertly crafted comic change ups, impeccable timing, razor sharp wit with fall on your face English farce, this two man/woman show is a non-stop laugh fest. [...]
Phil Johnson plays eight of the sixteen characters including a dog – brilliantly. He is just too funny (Right, there should be another word for “funny” but none describes the story as well). Each character is on the mark and Johnson never, never breaks. He is fully committed to each of his many personalities.
Then there’s Omri Schein. His character dedication is without pause. He’s a comic master mind that combines rib tickling, side splitting and lines delivered on the mark. One cannot help but be amazed.
David Ellenstein had the good sense to stay out of their way and allowed Johnson and Schein’s talent to meander throughout the story. Well, it just makes Ellenstein look really smart.
This delightful show came about because three guys thought there was something missing in San Diego theatre. Will Cooper, Ruff Yeager and Phil Johnson are making a difference by representing playwrights, producers, and actors coming together to make magic.
The team is supported by a production crew dedicated to their duties; James Olmstead made music, Scott Amiotte designed the set, Curtis Mueller managed the lights while Melanie Chen and Chad Lee synchronized the sound. However, absolutely nothing would have worked if Elisa Benzoni had not coordinated costumes with Bonnie Durben’s props along with Peter Herman’s wigs.
Hats off to this dedicated band of merry makers. (Elizabeth Youngman-Westphal)
Entertainment Weekly recommends '7 classic gothic tales to watch before you see
The Beguiled', such as
Wuthering Heights 1939.
As with the genre’s most famous entry, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Gothic tales typically center on female protagonists and investigate the female psyche, particularly as it relates to desire, repression, and unbridled emotion. [...]
Wuthering Heights (1939)
As with its sister text, Jane Eyre, there have been numerous attempts to adapt Emily Brontë’s tale of forbidden love on the moors. Though this adaptation only makes use of 16 of the novel’s 34 chapters, it is perhaps the most indelible for its Oscar-winning black-and-white cinematography that brings the ghostly, haunting moors to vivid life (despite being filmed in sunny Los Angeles). It favors romance over the novel’s intended towering feminine rage that extends from the afterlife, but for better or worse, the film’s take on the central relationship between Cathy (Merle Oberon) and Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier) has shaped notions of the story for more than half a century. Olivier disliked his costar because he had wanted to star opposite his real-life love interest Vivien Leigh (who was off making Gone with the Wind at this time). However, he did make an interesting contribution to the subconscious terror inherent to the gothic – fresh off playing Hamlet on the British stage, he employed Freudian techniques of psychoanalysis to make Heathcliff a smoldering Byronic hero in lieu of the more traditional romantic lover.
Rebecca (1940)
Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again…so begins this gothic romance based on a 1938 Daphne Du Maurier novel that was a contemporary answer to Jane Eyre. (Maureen Lee Lenker)
Decider thinks that the new screen adaptation of
Anne of Green Gables,
Anne with an E, has 'a protagonist problem'.
The major plot points of this narrative were well-established when Anne of Green Gables was originally published. I suspect that Anne herself is what was fresh. Here she’s a cross between Jane Eyre, Ramona Quimby, Hermione Granger, and Nellie Oleson. This isn’t a winning combination, and Amybeth McNulty’s portrayal is just one shade more reserved than the kind of acting one expects to see on those Disney tween shows where the kids are all loud and sassy. (I feel like a jerk trash-talking a little girl, so let’s blame the director.) Anne loves big words and lyrical imagery, and her speech reminds me—more than anything—of a character in a crappy historical romance. (Jessica Jernigan)
Here's how
The Huffington Post describes the British TV series
Inside No. 9:
The episodes tend to focus on conversation inside that venue, so if you’re looking for sweeping Jane Eyre-type British countryside visuals, this is probably not your show. (David Hinckley)
Coastal Illustrated has an article on 'The fine art of Romanticism':
The art of Romance and the month of June go together like a breath of fresh air. Paintings were not the only creative product of significance during this art period, as this was also the era of great poets such as Byron, Keats and Shelley. It was during this time that the famous romantic novels of the Brontë family, particularly “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë and “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Brontë, were first created.
Not really.
SparkLife imagines humorously how 'Classic Authors Pitched Their Novels, Probably':
Wuthering Heights
It’s a love story for the ages, except no it’s not. (Elodie)
Chiapas paralelo (Mexico) discusses the book Una adicción a la novela inglesa by Sergio Pitol
Sobre Cumbres borrascosas, de Emily Brontë, libro imprescindible, Pitol cede la voz a Virginia Woolf para tratar de clarificar la extraña pasión de los personajes (p. 37): “El conflicto no es de ‘te amo’ o ‘te odio’, sino el establecido entre ‘nosotros la raza humana’ y ‘ustedes, los poderes eternos’ ”. (Héctor Cortés Mandujano) (Translation)
The Lady Nerds find echoes of
Jane Eyre in Florence and the Machine's song “Only If For A Night"
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