Keighley News reports some of the Emily Brontë's bicentenary events at the Brontë Parsonage (with a big, big blunder):
A packed programme of activities for the 200th anniversary will centre on Haworth and in particular the Brontë Parsonage Museum.
Several will involve the personalities chosen to champion Jane Eyre writer Emily (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) during 2018: actress and former model Lily Cole, folk group The Unthanks, poet Patience Agbabi, artist Kate Whiteford and teen blogger Lucy Powrie.
Special events over the next 12 months are part of the five-year Brontë 200 Festival, and follow festivals devoted to the bicentennials of Charlotte and Branwell Brontë held in 2016 and 2017.
Brontë Society executive director Kitty Wright said: “Emily’s bicentenary is a particularly exciting chapter in our five-year bicentennial festival and we look forward to celebrating this most enigmatic of the Brontë siblings with audiences in Yorkshire and across the world.
“The year 2018 will also see us enter the Arts Council’s National Portfolio for the first time and we look forward to building on the partnerships we have developed during our celebrations of Charlotte in 2016 and Branwell in 2017.”
When the Brontë Parsonage Museum reopens on February 1 it will host a year-long exhibition entitled Making Thunder Roar: Emily Brontë.
For the exhibition, the Brontë Society has invited several well-known Emily admirers to share their own fascination with the author’s life and work.
There will be specially-commissioned contributions from Maxine Peake, Sally Wainwright, Caryl Phillips and Helen Oyeyemi, in a thought-provoking selection of Emily’s possessions, writing and artwork, as well as some of the well-loved household objects she used daily.
Visitors to the Brontë Parsonage Museum will also have the opportunity to see the iconic portrait of Emily with Charlotte and Anne, The Brontë Sisters, which was painted by her brother, Branwell Brontë.
The painting will return to Haworth for a special three-month loan from the National Portrait Gallery, London. (David Mason)
The crusade against Lily Cole's involvement in the Emily 200th celebrations (anathema!) goes steadily into surrealism. Meet Brontë biographers' version of
Celebrity Death Match:
One leading expert has threatened to resign from the Brontë Society following the announcement that Lily, an actress and social entrepreneur, will be its creative partner for 2018.
But Nick Holland’s strongly-worded criticism of the world’s oldest literary society for its modern outlook has been branded “tedious killjoy carping” by fellow Brontë writer Samantha Ellis.
Both are experts on Wuthering Heights author Emily’s less-renowned younger sister – Holland wrote In Search Of Anne Brontë and pens a blog at annebronte.org, while Ellis wrote Take Courage: Anne Brontë And The Art Of Life and headlined events during the Brontë Society’s anniversary celebrations for Branwell Brontë in 2017. (...)
In a Twitter response to Mr Holland’s blog, Samantha Ellis wrote: “What tedious killjoy carping. @BronteParsonage brilliantly balance intellectual rigour, integrity & FUN, in general & esp for #Bronte200.” (Keighley News)
Yorkshire Post reviews a new Haworth restaurant,
The Hawthorne with no Brontë references in an article full of Brontë references:
The Hawthorn is Haworth’s newest eatery and, says Amanda Wragg, ‘Dear reader, relax there’s not a single reference to the Brontës’. There’s not much in Haworth that’s not been fully Brontë-d. There’s the Villette Coffee House, Emily’s Café, Ye Olde Brontë Tea Rooms – so it’s a relief that a spanking new restaurant and bar on the High Street has resisted the urge to market itself as a place Branwell might have been thrown out of. (...)
Back in the day, carpenter William Wood, who made much of the furniture in the Parsonage, also made all the Brontës’ coffins, along with the cases for Barraclough clocks, one of which stands in the Parsonage and one of Charlotte’s friends, wrote how, after the death of her siblings, Charlotte would sit alone in the parlour with just the sound of the clock ticking. The vibe in the Hawthorn is jollier. (...)
Kitchen has hit the ground running; The Hawthorn is a long-held dream for him and he’s started in fine style. Service is super-friendly and the menu shows promise, particularly the Josper offerings. Oh and did I mention the bar? Small, wood panelled and cosy with a couple of local cask ales and a jar of homemade treats for your canine chum. After the Withins hike enjoy a pint of Saltaire Blonde and a read of the paper. Branwell would have loved it. (Amanda Wragg)
The Canberra Times is undecided:
If you're paying for cable or any TV subscription service, it's there to be used! My dad used to say (when he wanted my sister and me to avoid shoe stores and steer clear of his bank account), "Stay in and read the classics."
Much as it might be nice to reach for some Emily Brontë or Charles Dickens on a Sunday morning (and by all means, do!), we're much more likely to reach for the remote. And the best thing about that? Both are free! Can't argue with that. (Susie Moore)
The Argus lists the best shows in 2017. Including the National Theatre's production of
Jane Eyre:
One show that absolutely delivered that was the National Theatre’s version of Jane Eyre, which played at Theatre Royal Brighton in July.
Innovative features were at the heart of this adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s novel; from the appearance of a live band to the skeletal, three-deck framework of a set, which enabled delightful choreography. Most impressive of all, though, was the haunting sight of Melanie Marshall’s Bertha.
A permanent fixture on the stage, she frequently chimed in with enchanting, foreboding songs to heighten the already tense atmosphere. A brilliant twist on what is, let’s be honest, an overdone story. (Edwin Wilson)
The
New Jersey Daily Record talks about Soundings an annual program of readings sponsored by Writers Theatre of New Jersey (WTNJ) in Madison.
Stephen Kaplan, who is represented with a play about the Brontë family of authors, agreed. “One of the things I love about ‘Soundings’ is the quality of the audiences,” he said. “They’re intelligent, and they’re fierce advocates for theater.” (...)
Monday, January 15 – “Branwell (and the other Brontës): An autobiography edited by Charlotte Brontë” by Stephen Kaplan. (Bill Nutt)
Daily Breeze loves Edinburgh:
For centuries, Edinburgh, Scotland’s elegant and lively seat of power, has been admired by native sons and foreigners alike. “Half a capital and half a country town, the whole city leads a double existence,” Robert Louis Stevenson remarked.
Visitors of all stripes imagined themselves living there. Charlotte Brontë loved it. So did Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, who wrote in 1938 that the city “will make a delightful summer capital when we invade Britain.”
The
New York Times reviews
Catching Breath. The Making and Unmaking of Tuberculosis by Kathryn Lougheed:
Lougheed’s history of tuberculosis dates it back to ancient mummies and medieval bones. She touches on New England folklore that links the disease to vampirism, as well as TB’s 19th-century associations with creativity (think: Frédéric Chopin, Keats and the Brontës). (Amanda Schaffer)
The Daily Star reviews the book
Church Bell and Darjeeling Tea by Zeena Choudhury:
They made her conscious of her cultural roots. She was already well read in English Literature, having read Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte and the poems of Keats, Shelly and Byron and lighter works by Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories by then. Now it was time for her to read Rabindranath Tagore, the works of poet Nazrul Islam, Sarat Chandra Chattapaddhay and other Bengali writers. (Nusrat Huq)
Birth.Movies.Death and the best movies of 2017:
Set in 1950s London, Phantom Thread is sexy, pretty, and perverse, a love story that is somehow both buttoned-up and completely unmoored, at times reminding me of Rebecca, Jane Eyre, The Duke of Burgundy, and the films of David Lean, Hitchcock, and Powell & Pressburger. (Priscilla Page)
Being on autopilot, according to
InStyle:
If you wanted to live your live as a recluse, perhaps channeling your inner Emily Brontë, but still with access to the endless entertainment and resources of the 21st century, there really has never been a better time. (Victoria Moorhouse)
The New Potato interviews Debra Messing:
Laura Kosann: If you could have a dinner party with any five people, living or dead, who would you have over and what would you serve?
DM: Christiane Amanpour, Charlotte Brontë, Michelle Obama, Gloria Steinem, and Grace Paley. I would cater it, like a feast for kings, like for Henry VIII, just tons of food and lots of wine. I’d put extra pillows on the chairs so people could just really chill out.
El Telégrafo (Ecuador) announces the upcoming publication of a new translation of Emily Brontë's complete poetry:
Alba inaugurará una nueva colección de poesía, dirigida por Gonzalo Torné, con un volumen de Poesía completa de Emily Brontë y una antología de poetas españolas; y también en poesía se publicará en este primer trimestre una antología de Sylvia Plath. (Translation)
Planet Hugill lists the best classical recordings of 2017:
A wonderful 90th birthday present: John Joubert's Jane Eyre finally reaches CD. John Joubert Jane Eyre; April Fredrick, David Stout, Clare McCaldin, Mark Milhofer, Gwion Thomas, English Symphony Orchestra, Kenneth Woods; SOMM. A labour of love, a terrific performance of Joubert's romantic opera. (Robert Hugill)
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