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Thursday, February 13, 2020

Thursday, February 13, 2020 12:04 pm by Cristina in , , , , , , ,    No comments
The Guardian reviews Wuthering Heights at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, giving it 3 stars out of 5.
There’s an inherent, insistent strangeness to Wuthering Heights. Everything in Emily Brontë’s story of passionate, obsessive love is pushed beyond the edges of reason to jealousy, hatred and revenge. The Royal Exchange’s new version embraces this extremity, placing Cathy and Heathcliff on their own wild, abstract plane of reality.
The windy moors are a constant backdrop to Bryony Shanahan’s production, in which the heart of Rakhee Sharma’s impulsive Cathy belongs as much to the landscape as it does to Heathcliff (a captivatingly odd Alex Austin). In the first half, Cécile Trémolières’ bold, nature-evoking set is full of verdant growth, as grasses and heathers carpet the stage. After Cathy and Heathcliff are ripped apart, it becomes a wasteland, as bare as the gnarled tree whose branches reach overhead.
Andrew Sheridan’s adaptation focuses on the better-known first half of Brontë’s novel, with just a brief nod towards how Cathy and Heathcliff’s hurts and desires bleed into the next generation. His script is full of echoes and repetitions, as though the very language itself keeps being pulled back towards the vortex created by the two protagonists. But some of the famous poetry of Brontë’s dialogue feels overblown on stage; the most powerful moments are often when no words are spoken.
Between Zoe Spurr’s ethereal lighting, the eerie melodies of Alexandra Faye Braithwaite’s music and the characters’ insistent talk of death, this feels at times almost like a ghost story. For better or worse, Wuthering Heights remains an odd, untameable tale in Sheridan and Shanahan’s telling, its soul temporarily set free to haunt the imagined heaths and hilltops of the Royal Exchange’s stage. (Catherine Love)
According to The Telegraph and Argus, Thornton is a great place to live.
Its main claim to fame is that Thornton is the birthplace of the Brontë Sisters - the famous writers Anne, Emily and Charlotte were born on Market Street.
Their birthplace is now a café - appropriately named Emily’s - popular with both locals and tourists alike. [...]
Ian [Howard], speaking as he sips coffee in the café, says, “I was born opposite the Old Bell Chapel, which is the Church the Brontës went to. We used to walk past the Brontë’s birthplace on the way to school, so we became really familiar with the history.”
“If you’ve got a piece of history, like we have, it links everyone together. The thread that ties Thornton together is the Brontës.”
Ian, who now lives in Haworth, speaks about how Thornton’s Brontë heritage still plays an important role in its community today.
“We run a community group where we take people on Brontë-themed walks across the moors”, before he says, with a smile, “My company is called Wuthering Hikes!” - a pun that any Thornton resident surely won’t need explaining. (Yusef Alam)
Cyprus Mail features the Peak District:
A wild and wondrous expanse which falls mostly into the county of Derbyshire, the Peak District is a hiker’s paradise, with nearly 3,000km of trails, including the infamous Pennine Way. It’s also been the inspiration for many a literary offering: the region inspired several of William Wordsworth’s poems; it was the setting for key scenes in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice; and the village in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. (Alix Norman)
Yorkshire Post carries the story of Moorseats Hall being up for sale.

According to The Independent, Jane Eyre is one of 'The 10 greatest love stories in literature'.
8/10 3. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë
From the red room of childhood nightmares to the mad woman locked in an attic, this Victorian novel has lent us some powerful symbols. It also stands as an enduring love story between the overlooked but fiercely intelligent governess of the title and Mr Rochester, who gradually learns to value what’s in front of him. (Ceri Radford)
While Your Story has selected Wuthering Heights as one of 'The top classic romantic novels to set the mood for Valentine’s Day'.
Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë’s first and only published novel has now gained cult status. The brooding Byronic Healthcliff and his beloved rebel, Catherine, may seem more vengeful than loving, but this is a story of love lost and found. Unbridled passion, destructive love, and psychological realism come together on the unforgiving Yorkshire landscape to create a world that you can't inhabit - or leave. After her sister’s death, Charlotte Brontë wrote a preface for a new edition of Wuthering Heights: “It is rustic all through. It is moorish, and wild, and knotty as the root of heath.” Said it all! Top quote: “He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” (Teja Lele Desai)
Lecturalia (Spain) considers both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights good Valentine's Day presents.
Cumbres borrascosas, de Emily Brontë: Es, probablemente, una de las novelas más románticas que se han escrito. Una historia de amor y de venganza en la que dos niños, Catherine Earnshaw y Heathcliff comenzarán una relación dependiente que les acompañará a lo largo de su vida, y también después de la muerte.
Jane Eyre, de Charlotte Brontë:  Llevada a la gran pantalla en varias ocasiones, esta novela cuenta la historia de Jane Eyre, una huérfana que crece en un orfanato austero, a la que su ímpetu e inteligencia le llevan en busca de un futuro mejor. A los 18 años comienza a trabajar como institutriz en una mansión, encargada de la educación de una joven. Allí se enamorará de su empleador, el señor Rochester, un hombre ya prometido. (Elena Martínez) (Translation)
Williamsburg Yorktown Daily recommends places in which 'to spark first-date romance in Williamsburg'.
Nearby Mermaid Books also has first-date potential, with its quirky decor. There are comic strips taped to the walls and mermaid paintings on stools and above bookshelves. Plus, the scent of books — and being surrounded by literary romances from “Pride and Prejudice” to “Wuthering Heights” — could create an intimate mood. (Alexa Doiron)
On the flip side, The Globe and Mail (Canada) discusses heartbreak.
History, literature and all the chairs in the coffee shop are heavy with heartbreak. Charlotte Brontë’s Lucy Snowe shivered there. “Deeper than melancholy,” she cried, “lies heartbreak.” (Laura Pratt)
Straight reviews the film Portrait de la jeune fille en feu.
As you might deduce from the title, Portrait of a Lady on Fire is rife with cultural references, from the fraught formalism of Henry James to the gothic swoon of the Brontë sisters and on toward Francis Bacon’s fatally singed subjects. This gorgeously crafted 18th-century tale is also shot through with Greek mythology, with the hellbound tale of Orpheus and Eurydice front and centre. (Ken Eisner)
New Statesman reviews the new film adaptation of Emma:
Some of [Johnny] Flynn’s obvious discomfort as Mr Knightley can be blamed on his costume – he told Vogue magazine that the high,  stiff collars gave him “a weird sort of ear chafe”– but the rest arises from his natural tension between the tender and the coarse, already shown to more seductive effect when he played a Heathcliff type in Beast. (Ryan Gilbey)
This columnist from Michigan Daily compares Beyoncé and her sister Solange to Charlotte and Emily Brontë.
Beyoncé’s transcendence as a music artist is hardly done justice by this name, but it seems that this higher plane of talent runs in the family: I have recently discovered that Beyoncé has a sister, Solange. Her latest album, When I Get Home, is a beautiful discussion of race and femininity. This sister duo is not novel in their familial talent, for they are preceded by the 19th century authors Charlotte and Emily Brontë. (Tate Lafrenier)
According to Billboard, the best cover of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights is
6. Josh Pyke, "Wuthering Heights"
It takes a brave, or some would say foolish, individual to take on the high drama of Bush's signature hit. Aussie troubadour Josh Pyke added his name to that list in 2007 with his contribution to gender-swapped covers album No Man's Woman. While some would believe it's sacrilegious to strip back everything that made "Wuthering Heights" such an innovative piece of art pop, Pyke's laconic minor key vocals and autumnal folk arrangement means this is far more intriguing than just a simple campfire sing-along. (Jon O'Brien)
Filmcentric posts about Wuthering Heights 2011. The staff at Elizabeth Gaskell's house in Manchester have been able to locate the exact room Charlotte Brontë stayed in during her visit.

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