Kate Bush: stirring Boris Johnson's emotions in a red chiffon thing since 1978

Manchester Evening News reports that Elizabeth Gaskell's House has launched an appeal to help raise funds to restore her bedroom to the way it was when she lived there.

The Grade II*-listed property is where Elizabeth wrote some of her most famous novels, such as Cranford and North and South, and where she entertained guests, including Charlotte Brontë and Charles Dickens.
The House was opened to the public in October 2014 after a rocky restoration journey, but the bedroom has been left unrestored until now.
“This is such a thrilling project for Elizabeth Gaskell’s House," Sally Jastrzebski-Lloyd, house manager, said.
"It will be a lovely addition to the visitor experience; enabling us to share further insight into Elizabeth’s world and the way she lived her life.
"The house was in a terrible state when the Trust took over the care of it in 2004 and there are no existing records detailing how this room would have looked, so we have a blank canvas.
"What we hope to achieve is a re-imagination of the room and a fitting legacy to Elizabeth." [...]
"Elizabeth’s own writing has been a rich starting point for our research," Sally added.
"She had the ability to illuminate Victorian society and domesticity in a way quite unlike any other writer of her time.
"We also have our finger’s crossed that some of the original pieces of furniture that were auctioned off during the house sale in 1913 might find their way back home through our appeal.”
The fund-raising campaign aims to raise £10,000 to refurbish the bedroom and redevelop the first floor of the building and install a timeline and family tree display.
The funds will also be used to buy furniture including a bed, a wardrobe and a Cheval mirror.
Little Greene Paint Company, who specialise in historic wallpaper designs and paint colours, will be supplying the wallpaper and paint for the bedroom while Nostalgia in Stockport will also be sponsoring a replacement stone fireplace. (Adam Maidment)

About Manchester carries the story too.

Currently visitors to Elizabeth Gaskell’s House are warmly invited to discover the world and influences of one of the most important and popular writers of Victorian times. The Grade II* listed property in Manchester is where you can see how Elizabeth lived, where she wrote some of her most famous novels, where she entertained guests, including Charlotte Bronte and Charles Dickens, and the gardens she cherished. However, her former bedroom has been left unrestored since the House was opened to the public as a visitor attraction in 2014; until now.
Manchester Historic Building Trust, which cares for the house, has launched an appeal to try and gather the funds needed to transform this empty room back to its original purpose. From detailed research, volunteers have produced a list of individual items, so that people have the option of selecting a particular object to fund. This includes everything from a curtained bed and wardrobe, to finishing details like lamps, chamber sticks and bedroom textiles that would befitting a room in a middle-class Victorian house. The existing fireplace was removed, so a replacement is being installed, and it is believed there was once a chaise longue and hip bath in the room. It is also hoped that people, and other heritage organisations, might have original Victorian artefacts that they might donate, or loan to Elizabeth Gaskell’s House. [...]
Sally Jastrzebski-Lloyd, House Manager of Elizabeth Gaskell’s House, says, “This is such a thrilling project for Elizabeth Gaskell’s House, that will be a lovely addition to the visitor experience; enabling us to share further insight into Elizabeth’s world and the way she lived her life.
“The house was in a terrible state when the Trust took over the care of it in 2004 and there are no existing records detailing how this room would have looked, so we have a blank canvas. What we hope to achieve is a reimagination of the room and a fitting legacy to Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s own writing has been a rich starting point for our research, in that she had the ability to illuminate Victorian society and domesticity in a way quite unlike any other writer of her time. We also have our finger’s crossed that some of the original pieces of furniture that were auctioned off during the house sale in 1913 might find their way back home through our appeal.” (Nigel Barlow)

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Grazia Magazine asked Prime Minister Boris Johnson about 'The Five Women Who Have Shaped' his life. Apparently one of them is Kate Bush:

And the fifth? Well, the Prime Minister appeared to deliberate on this one… could it be the Queen? Or the former prime minister Margaret Thatcher? No – instead, he chose a British artist who ‘wrote what is surely one of the world’s greatest ever pop songs’: Kate Bush. (Phoebe Parke)

The Times tells a bit more about it:

Bush, he said, had “stirred his emotions” with tracks such as Wuthering Heights, which formed the soundtrack to his adolescence. Despite this he admitted that he did not understand all her songs or why she “hopped around in a red chiffon thing”. (Oliver Wright)

The Berkshire Edge reviews Hartford Stage’s Jane Eyre.

As young Jane in this play, Meghan Pratt plays every right note in her role. When she takes on her aunt, it is with a child’s own viciousness, and this establishes Jane’s role in the world perfectly. Pratt is a talented child and I was glad to see that she wouldn’t let audiences down.
When the grown-up version of the child appears, she has that same sensibility: She doesn’t take well to mean-spirited criticism. Sadler, in fact, is the pluckiest of young women as Miss Eyre. She faces the world with a practical eye and an attitude of success — there is no sense of subservience in her portrayal. Sadler’s greatest asset in this role is the take-charge manner she displays. Using passages from the novel as narrative of her own life, Jane tells the story as she plays it out before us. She takes the adaptor’s work and makes it seem like her own, knowledgeably, assertively, with no sense of scripted words at all. Doing so, she is rarely off-stage. Sadler’s work is excellent, theatrical and honest at the same time. She literally inhabits the role of Jane Eyre. (...)
The big, dark soul of the play has always been Mr. Rochester. In this version he is played by Chandler Williams, who seems from the outset to possess just such a soul. With an imperious manner and a rasp in his voice, abrupt movements and a seemingly open disregard for Jane’s positions on things, he is the anti-romantic figure. Watching Sadler’s Jane fall in love with him is part of the dynamic of this play. He is a victim to be saved; we can see that in her way of addressing him. He is a challenge to be taken. To my delight, the dinner-party Gypsy scene, often left out of versions of “Jane Eyre,” is played out with gusto, and Williams is wonderful alongside Sadler in this key moment in their relationship. His final moments in the play are nearly heartbreaking. I ultimately enjoyed him very much.
This is just a prime example of how one form of narrative can be transformed into another. Elizabeth Williamson has done a fine job of creating a play from a novel and she has directed it without trickery or recourse to filmic techniques. The play moves beautifully and simply from one arena to another thanks to the excellent set design work by Nick Vaughan. Ilona Somogyi has created picture-perfect costumes of the 1830s, and the most sensitive lighting design created by Isabella Byrd blends all of the other elements into a lovely and emotional picture of the period of the play. There is original music by Christian Frederickson, used perfectly by sound designer Matt Hubbs, whose theatrical sound effects were just right for the play, as were the wigs and hair design added by Jason Allen. Congratulations to stage managers Hannah Woodward and Kelly Hardy for running a most complex show.
If you know the book, you’ll enjoy the play. If you know the movies, there may be some revelations. If, like the women behind me in the theater, you are unfamiliar with “Jane Eyre,” you will be joyously and amazingly converted to the world of Charlotte Brontë. This is an excellent experience, highly recommended and deeply encouraged. See it. (J. Peter Bergman)

Annabel Smith asks writer Donna Mazza about how she became a writer.

But the hook, line and sinker for me was Wuthering Heights. Out on the wild, windy moors I formed as a writer and all my work owes a debt to it. In my writer consciousness, landscape and character are knitted together, and my own heroines are a bit rash thanks to Emily Brontë. This early grounding in the Gothic drove my literary tastes while to most people my age, Gothic was more about black eyeliner than literature.

The Guardian Books podcast features Isabel Greenberg speaking about Glass Town. Generally Gothic has a post on Wide Sargasso Sea.