Jane Eyre reset to South Lanarkshire and Perthshire

The National Scotland has found the stage adaptation of Jane Eyre at the Botanic Garden in Glasgow to be 'as unpredictable as the Scottish weather'.

The play – which resets Brontë’s story from northern England to South Lanarkshire and Perthshire – begins with the cast members ­arriving onstage shaking their umbrellas of, in this case, fictional Scottish rain.

This production – which is performed in front of the backdrop of a generic Scottish landscape painting – creaks a little in designer Heather Grace Currie’s simple, broadly 20th-century creations.

In part this is due to a number of ­actors ­playing multiple characters (for instance, there’s little narrative sense in the arch-moralist Mr Brocklehurst – portrayed by the ever-excellent Alan Steele – wearing turned-up jeans).

A number of director Dick’s staging ideas don’t set the heather alight either.

The decision to have the six-strong cast on or near the stage most of the time leads, ­distractingly, to actors standing around ­pointlessly or, worse, turning their backs to the audience as an indication that their character has, in fact, left the scene.

Then there is the attempt to add some ­atmosphere by way of vocal effects (particularly the disturbed laughter of Rochester’s famously confined wife Bertha Mason) conveyed live via microphones. Modish this may be, but here it is repetitive and ineffective.

The representation of the immolation of Thornfield Hall by way of a moment of ­interpretive dance is mercifully short.

All of which is a great pity because, at its ­dramatic bones, this is a very decent ­rendering of the novel. Dick’s adaptation is crisp and meaningful, while Stephanie McGregor’s Jane is compellingly spirited and sympathetic.

Johnny Panchaud is, simultaneously, ­broodingly fascinating and painfully conflicted as Rochester. The pair are backed by a strong supporting cast in a well-acted, nicely adapted, but unevenly directed production. (Mark Brown)

A contributor to Express writes about staying in Scarborough's Grand Hotel.

First impressions were surreal. Blue plaques that proudly hang outside declare it “once Europe’s largest hotel” and also the site where writer Anne Brontë died… I told you it had history. (Mieka Smiles)

The Economic Times wonders whether there will be a season 2 of My Lady Jane.

One potential direction for the second season could involve exploring the other books in the series by Hand, Ashton, and Meadows. Each book focuses on a different historical or fictional figure, offering rich material for adaptation.

For instance, the second book reimagines Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre with a feminist and fantastical twist, while the third book takes on the story of Western icon Calamity Jane.