A holy relic almost

The Yorkshire Post celebrates the temporary return home of Emily Brontë's portrait.

A striking portrait of a renowned Yorkshire writer has gone on display in the house where it was painted nearly two centuries ago.

The profile image of Emily Brontë is one of the only surviving likenesses of the novelist and poet. It was painted by her brother Branwell originally as part of a family portrait of Emily, himself, and their sisters Charlotte and Anne.

The work, on loan until October 31 from the National Portrait Gallery in London, has gone on display at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth as part of the UK City of Culture celebrations in Bradford.

Branwell created the picture when he was about 17 in around 1833. He was shown holding a gun but later painted himself out.

It was inherited by Charlotte’s widower, Arthur Bell Nicholls, who destroyed the images of Charlotte and Anne thinking them poor likenesses. However, he kept the remaining scrap because he thought the depiction of Emily was accurate. It was discovered decades later on top of a wardrobe.

Ann Dinsdale, principal curator at the Bronte Parsonage Museum, said: “There is great expectancy at the parsonage and we can’t wait for our visitors to see it. It is a fairly rare opportunity to see it outside London in the house where it was painted.”

She said its popularity owed much to the “haunting” image of Emily looking much as readers might expect of the Wuthering Heights author.

“She’s looking into the distance, you can only see her in profile. The way it’s been torn, you feel it’s like a holy relic almost,” she said. “We’re definitely expecting people to make a special trip while it’s here.”

The discovery of the portraits proved to be a compelling story in themselves.

On the first day of viewing in 1914 so many people wanted to see the pictures, the Yorkshire Observer noted the gallery “underwent a minor siege”. (Mike Waites)

Offaly Live reports that the new film about Charlotte Brontë’s wedding settlement is to be premiered in Offaly as part of National Heritage Week festivities.

Many Irish people are unaware that the English novelist, Charlotte Bronte was married to an Irish-man, Arthur Bell Nicholls from Banagher.

Charlotte was the only one of her siblings to marry and we are lucky enough to have her dramatic first-hand account of Arthur's proposal and her father, the Rev Patrick Brontë's staunch opposition to this union. In fact Arthur broached the subject of marriage on Monday December 13th 1852 and there followed a tsunami of events before the couple eventually became engaged. Their marriage took place on June 29th 1854.

Her father put many obstacles in the couple's way. He even tried to sabotage the wedding by declaring, on the evening before the ceremony, that he was 'indisposed' and unable to attend. So, in the absence of any other male relatives, who would give the bride away?

Luckily, Charlotte had her two best friends staying in the Parsonage with her, Ellen Nussey (her bridesmaid) and her mentor, Margaret Wooler. The ladies put their thinking caps on and looked up the Book of Common Prayer (a religious text book). They discovered that the person who conducted the bride up the aisle did not have to be male and so, Margaret Wooler, Charlotte's former teacher, took up that role and the wedding went ahead at 8am on the following morning.

One must remember at that time, marriage was a social, religious and legal contract. Prior to the wedding, on May 24th, a group including Charlotte, Arthur, the bride's father Patrick, the trustee Joe Taylor and Charlotte's solicitor, assembled in the Parsonage at Haworth to sign a legal document known as the Wedding Settlement. Who instigated this contract? Why was this a necessary step? Where did Charlotte's money come from? What was the legal standing of women at that time under English law?

To answer these questions I brought my camera along to the Parsonage Museum in Haworth (home of the Brontës) to interview an expert in this field. Their Principal Curator, Ann Dinsdale kindly retrieved the Wedding Settlement parchment from the archives and unpacked the story behind it.

This film will be premiered in Banagher on August 17th of August 2025 at 2.30pm as part of the Heritage Week festivities. Ann Dinsdale will be present at Crank House, Main Street and Q & A afterwards should be fascinating. (Maebh O’Regan)

Indeed it should!

London Theatre 1 gives 4 stars to John Joubert's take on Jane Eyre at Arcola Theatre.

Composer John Joubert and librettist Kenneth Birkin worked on this opera adaptation of Jane Eyre for over a decade, from 1987 to 1997 – there were other things going on during this time, and much of their collaboration was done by correspondence, some of which is apparently now in the archives of the British Library, together with some of Joubert’s composition manuscripts. The good thing about this being an opera they wanted to compose and write, rather than being commissioned, is that there was no deadline by which it had to be good and ready come what may. The ‘bad’ thing, as it were, about an uncommissioned work is that it can take a while to get a full production. In this case, it was quite a long while indeed: and so it was, that on opening night, Birkin stood alone with the cast at curtain call, Joubert having died in 2019.

Surtitles are in use, even though the opera is in English in the first place. Emotions that come gushing from carefully constructed and thought-through intonations and inflections in a surprisingly enjoyable experience, accessible without compromising too much on the nuances in the story. Of course, a two-act opera (which itself probably rankles purists) that sends the audience home the ‘right’ side of 10:00pm isn’t going to capture everything that the Charlotte Brontë novel does. It effectively skips the first two of the five stages of the novel’s narrative, jumping straight into Jane Eyre (Laura Mekhail) having resigned from her job for the mundane reason (at surface level, at least) of being successful at another job she applied for. The rest is pretty much as the novel would have it, ending, in essence, where Brontë’s Eyre wrote: “Reader, I married him”.

I wasn’t thinking about the book whilst watching the opera, which on balance I think is a good thing: the opera does not assume prior knowledge of the story, and there is no synopsis in the show’s programme (well, online freesheet – it is 2025, after all), because one is not required. The operatic convention of putting more effort and energy into singing about one’s intention to do something than actually doing it manifests itself in St John Rivers (Lawrence Thackeray) and his plan to embark on an overseas missionary trip. Whether he goes in the end is known to those who have read the novel, but here, with his purpose in Eyre’s story served, he’s just forgotten about altogether in the final scenes.

The focus on the central character appeals to me: a show called Jane Eyre should be about Jane Eyre! This is not opera on a grand scale, and it is, for the most part, solos and duets, duets and solos. I resist a direct comparison with Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde as the storyline is too dissimilar. Joubert’s music more often than not has a propulsive rhythm, and this production is a lean machine, in the sense that most shows, even excellent ones, could do with a little trimming – and some could do with a lot – but this one requires none at all. Perhaps more set would have been ideal, as different settings looked more or less like one another. Otherwise, it was an enthusiastic and engaging evening, which held my attention throughout despite prior familiarity with the story. (Chris Omaweng)

And now for the unavoidable comments on a film that is months away from being premiered but of which everybody already has a rooted opinion. Grazia wonders whether all the fuss may be a marketing stunt.

There aren't many directors who manage to stir up rage, controversy and divide opinion quite like Emerald Fennell. Before she could even say the word 'Heights', the Promising Young Woman director's adaptation of Emily Bronte's 1847 novel has had the internet up in arms.

First, she was criticised for casting Margot Robbie, 35, as Catherine Earnshaw, who (spoiler alert) dies by the time she is 18. Then she was called out for casting Jacob Elordi, a white actor, in the racially ambiguous role of Heathcliff. And then 'first look' pictures of Wuthering Heights found their way onto social media and the whole production was written off for its numerous historically inaccuracies.

Now, despite the film not coming out until 13 February 2026, scathing reviews of the test screenings have put Fennell's adaptation back in the headlines. One viewer at the first test screening in Dallas labelled the film 'aggressively provocative' and said it had parallels with the 'stylised depravity' of her last project, Saltburn. [...]

What is surprising, though, is that we are hearing about all of this six months before the film hits cinemas. Whether you work in the entertainment industry or not, it is fairly unprecedented for reviews of screen testings not to be under strict embargoes, especially for a film with such a demonstrable marketing budget and high profile cast and crew.

There is a reason why reviews tend to drop the week before or day of a film being released. They are, to all intents and purposes, a way of helping people decide whether to tune in. Nowadays they are also used to create 'buzz' and help the film cut through in online discourse.

Given Fennell's penchant for raucous debate – she certainly seems to be an advocate of 'all publicity is good publicity' – it's hard to imagine that these scabrous reviews are not part of the film's wider marketing strategy.

When have we ever heard what a single viewer in Dallas thinks of a test screening before? Or read that a film blogger thinks her interpretation adds 'something bold and unexpected' to Brontë's story? It is far from usual protocol. And Fennell knows what she's doing. [...]

In a world where audiences are constantly overwhelmed by choice and reluctant to spend in cinemas without knowing what they're paying for, the louder the chatter about a film is online, the more likely they are to watch it.

If that's what Fennell is playing into, then hats (or bonnets) off to her. Wuthering Heights might still be six months away, but part of me wants to find out what all the fuss is about already. (Nikki Peach)

Taking the more traditional hand-wringing approach are The Independent and The Irish Times while NME and Metro stick to the hearsay.