Slicky Done

A few more reviews of the National Theatre's production of Underdog: The Other Other Brontë. 3 stars in Liam O'Dell:

Anna and Emily Brontë bear the brunt of foul-mouthed, opportunistic big sister Charlotte (Upstart Crow and Killing Eve’s Gemma Whelan) in Sarah Gordon’s hyper, camp but ultimately confusing production about the literary siblings bustling for recognition in a patriarchy. Underdog is clever and very funny – indeed it knows it is – but often gets carried away, tangling itself up in mixed messages and jokes pushed almost to breaking point that it’s difficult to identify the overarching argument contained in retelling this forgotten story through a slightly modernised lens. (...)

Writing wise, Emily (Adele James) comes across as completely neglected by Gordon for most of the play. I was just about to write in my notebook about her noticeable absence from the second act before James took to the stage to deliver some excellent dialogue slamming the heartlessness on display from Charlotte. Clements perfectly captures a painful injustice in Anna looking up to her big sister only for Charlotte to shun her in return, while James’ Emily is a brilliantly barbed equal to Whelan’s sardonic Charlotte. I just wish we’d seen more of Emily here. (...)

We know Charlotte’s an unreliable narrator, and while she’s fair from saintly or ‘good’ when she’s placing herself on a pedestal, Whelan triumphs at warming us to her by way of her being so candid (bouncing between frivolity and patronisation), but all this juxtaposition makes it hard to a more robust idea to surface. Is she more concerned with changing our perception of her, or the patriarchal attitudes of her time? What makes her think she can weather the storm of judgement from readers whereas Anna can’t? (Liam O'Dell)

The Evening Standard also gives the production 3 stars: 

The Brontë sisters’ legend gets another going over in this rumbunctious but slender play by Sarah Gordon. It allows them to be not just feminist literary trailblazers martyred to tuberculosis and the patriarchy, but also jealous, competitive and selfish.

Especially Charlotte, who is played with brash charisma and micron-deep self-interest by TV favourite Gemma Whelan. Behind every great woman, she says, are a hundred other great women vying for her hard-won place at the table.

The language is saltily updated – Poet Laureate Robert Southey is dismissed as a “bell end” – and Natalie Ibu’s co-production with Northern Stage, of which she is artistic director, is playful and visually witty.

But the show relies on argument rather than character and it’s short on substance, partly because so little is known about the Brontes beyond their published works.

On one level this is yet another play about how tough it is to be a writer, though this was especially true for three women in the 1840s trapped on a Yorkshire Moor with a vicar father and a wastrel brother.

On another, it’s an imaginative reappraisal and reclamation of the youngest sister, Anne, played with great charm and warmth by Rhiannon Clements. (...)

There’s lots of direct address to the audience as the ultimate arbiters of the story, and some very clumsy ‘meta’ touches: Charlotte is literally put into a display case in the Haworth parsonage museum at the end. Back in your box, eh?

This is slickly done, knockabout fun which takes on some serious subjects and rightly relegates the men to supporting roles. But ultimately, it doesn’t say much new about the Brontes, gender or jealousy at all. (Nick Curtis)

Birmingham Mail visits Rowton's Well in Sutton Park:

The water was freezing. I sat on the edge of the well and spotted what looked like a glint of gold bubbling from the earth. Unlike the forested areas of the park, this spot is surrounded by scrubland, like a scene from Wuthering Heights. (Kirsty Bosley)

Outlook Traveler makes a list of pilgrimage sites for lovers of literature:

The Brontë Sisters

Maintained by the Brontë Society, this humble parsonage in West Yorkshire, England was once home to the renowned Brontë sisters. It was owned by their father who was a curate at the nearby St Michael and All Angels' Church in Haworth. Three of his daughters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne grew up to be acclaimed authors who played a significant role in shaping the history of English literature as we know it. From 'Wuthering Heights', 'Jane Eyre' to 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall', each of these books were written within the stone walls of the Haworth Parsonage that was converted into a museum in 1928. Using contemporary descriptions, surviving bills and accounts, sampling and cross-section evidence, the house was revamped in great detail to resemble its 1850s appearance. (Snigdha Sharma)

The Berkshire Edge has an article about Christina Rosetti:

The 19th Century produced several major women poets in Victorian England including Emily Brontë and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. But none was more prolific and more worthy of our attention than Christina Rossetti (1830-1894).  Prolific?  A volume of her complete poems requires 875 pages. (William P. Perry)

ITVX and AnneBronte.org publish some pictures and also comment on the Brontë Birthplace in Thornton passing into public ownership:

 Work has already begun to restore the building in time for the City of Culture celebrations.

Steve Stanworth, vice chair of Brontë Birthplace Limited, which was set up to spearhead the building's purchase, said: "You don't have to read the books, you have to know that the three of the most world famous authors were born in this house, and that should be inspiration enough

"We want to inspire the children of the area to say 'well if three local Bradford girls, not from well off backgrounds, can go on to do what they achieved, well so can we.'"

Myriam J.A..Chancy writes in LitHub about writing as an act of conjuring:

But, like all things, even houses can be transformed into structures for new imaginings, as when Jean Rhys decides in Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) to free Bertha Mason Rochester from Charlotte Brontë’s attic in Jane Eyre (1847), to give Bertha a story of her own, more than a room. She frees her into the world even if she ends no better than in Brontë’s imaginings, no better than by fire. Still, Rhys gives Bertha an entire novel in which to roam and a seemingly ordered world is turned on its head: this is what the novel form can yield, if we desire to hear other stories. To accommodate them, the form must also be altered.

The Times recommends some family-friendly Airbnbs in the UK:

A lakefront lodge in West Yorkshire

(...) It’s handy for the Brontës’ home town of Haworth, too, which can be reached from nearby Damems station via the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway — an excellent family outing. (Oliver Berry)

The Lancashire Post reports that 'The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever' will return to Preston this year. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall's novelist appears in the LA Times Crossword for April 6, 2024. A new installment of the Behind the Glass podcast has been published:

Sam and Sassy chat to author and Brontë Society trustee Lucy Powrie.  We'll discuss fantasy worlds, diaries and neurodiversity.