Sandy Welch and the BBC trailer for episode 2 of Jane Eyre

Pennyforyourdreams is a constant source of information on the new on going BBC Jane Eyre adaptation. A visit to her blog shows two interesting novelties:



The BBC trail for the second episode (or directly on youtube). It's quite different from the online clip available from the official website so we recommend you watch it carefully :)



Also you can find this interesting (scanned) interview with writer Sandy Welch,

Jane Eyre is a book that has compelled me since I was a teenager. It's an astonishingly heady rush and Jane's every thought mark her out as a very modern heroine. The passionate nature of her relationship with Rochester, coupled with the equallity of intellect that they both crave, remains the romantic ideal of many a 21-st century woman. I worked quite quickly and by the end of the summer the scripts for all four episodes were in. (...)

Hearing an actor say the lines in the way that you imagined is the biggest high for me as a dramatist, and the way that Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson were able to find the complexity in some of their long scenes was amazing. Jane doesn't say much to Rochester in their scenes together, but Ruth says it with great clarity and emotional intensity. Toby was determined to get away with the pantomime image of Rochester as a figure who either broods or strides around bellowing, to find the humanity in him.

In the interview you can find some information about some of the changes introduced by Sandy Welch and about the performance of Pilot, it seems that he will not be nominated to the best canine performance of the year :(.

Categories: Movies-DVD-TV, Jane_Eyre

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"With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy"

Although we hear it's not the one she reads in the new miniseries of Jane Eyre, in the novel, young Jane is mesmerised by the pictures of birds that appear on Thomas Bewick's History of British Birds. Just as mesmerised, in fact, as were the young Brontës, who copied profusely from the book.

Today we hear of a new biography on this famous engraver: Nature's Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick by Jenny Uglow.

From The Guardian:

Shown Bewick's Birds, the 12-year-old Charlotte Brontë held the book close to her face, partly because she was shortsighted. But she examined the illustrations so minutely and at such length that others asked what she saw in them. This same book she later gave to the young Jane Eyre, who hides from the bully at Gateshead Hall behind the curtains of a window seat: "With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy." Today his appeal helps to sell jam, greetings cards, posters and books, wherever designers harness his small images to their purpose. No wonder Jenny Uglow claims they have become "woven into our imagined version of a rural past".

From The Scotsman:

An outspoken radical politically at a time when seditious talk could lead to imprisonment (his formative years spanned the American War of Independence, the French Revolution of 1789 and the subsequent wars with France, and at home the imposition of the Corn Laws and accompanying years of social unrest), he was also a Romantic who decried the deleterious impact of industrialisation and enclosure on the landscape.

Sounds like the young Brontës could have been just as interested in his life too.

For Uglow, who has written magnificent biographies of Elizabeth Gaskell and Hogarth...

Ahem.

"He learnt his technique undoubtedly as an artisan, and if he hadn't had those long boring days, weeks, months, years doing dog collars and coffin plates he wouldn't have had the skill in his fingers," Uglow says.

Now there's a lesson.

Incidentally, The Scotsman also carries another review of a book called The Complete Book of Aunts by Rupert Christiansen (read the first chapter of the book here) where we find Aunt Reed:

"Why are there aunts?" asked a baffled four-year-old of Rupert Christiansen's acquaintance, as the writer sat in the boy's parents' dining room talking about his latest book, which deals with this vexed question. It is one that might have been posed by Bertie Wooster, or Harry Potter, or even Jane Eyre, whose villainous aunt by marriage, Mrs Reed, was the author of all Charlotte Brontë's heroine's woes.

We wonder if he also looks at Aunt Branwell. Much maligned and ignored over the years, many biographies have also tried to show she wasn't the cold religious zelot they would have us believe. With this subject at hand, it's very appropriate she gave Tales of a Grandfather by their much-admired Walter Scott to her nephew and nieces one Christmas.

Fortunately not all aunts are like Aunt Reed! :)

Categories: Books, Jane_Eyre

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A couple of reviews

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review publishes a review of the on-going performances of After Mrs. Rochester that we have commented previously:

Like writer Jean Rhys, the central character in "After Mrs. Rochester," the auditorium, the library to which it is attached and even the community of Braddock that surrounds it, have all endured despite hardships and reversals of fortune that should have ended in destruction.

"I thought it was right (for the play) because it reflects a quality she had," says Karla Boos, Quantum artistic director. "Like her, it's hanging in there." (...)
The play is set in England in 1957. But the audience also is inside Rhys' imagination as she works on what can best be described as a prequel or backstory to "Jane Eyre."

Bronte's characters -- Edward Rochester and his wife, Bertha, a madwoman confined in the attic of his ancestral home, as well as Grace Poole, the woman charged with taking care of the mad Mrs. Rochester -- all come to life in scenes that draw parallels between Rhys' past and present reality and that of Bertha's.

"It's the story of her, as well as the characters she wrote about," says Boos who plays Rhys. "It's about an artist trying to make a piece of work from her point of view who had difficulty trying to be an artist and a mother at the same time. She really moves me." (...) (Alice T. Carter) (In the picture: Robin Walsh (left) as Bertha Rochester and Mikelle Johnson as young Jean Rhys. Credits: Mary Mervis/Quantum Theatre. Source).

On the other hand, we have to report something on the intense promotional campaing of Diane Setterfield's book The Thirteenth Tale that we have presented before. There's no day without a press mention of its Jane-Eyrish background of influences. Among the many examples that we could quote, we have chosen this article published in The Globe and Mail by Michelle Orange:

The Thirteenth Tale, British writer Diane Setterfield's debut novel (in her earlier life, she was an academic specializing in modern French literature), sends out such an invitation, and she has been rewarded, by her publisher, at least, with comparisons to the Brontës and Daphne du Maurier. Setterfield sets her novel in a sort of foggy, modern anytime; we know it's post-Jane Eyre, however, as Charlotte Brontë's famous novel is the fodder, literally, for at least one plot twist and the thematic godmother of several more.

Categories: In_the_News, Books, Theater, Wide_Sargasso_Sea

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Jane Eyre casting in New Hampshire

We have an alert coming from New Hampshire. The Stagecoach productions are looking for actors for a new production of Jane Eyre, a Musical Drama (no information if this is Paul Gordon's musical or another one). The details for each role and how to submit your CV are here.

Jane Eyre, a Musical Drama - NH

Project Type	Live Event	Submission Type	Open Call
Location	Nashua, NH	Union	Non-union
Rate/Pay	n/a	Release Date	09-11-06
Audition Date		Submission Deadline	10-01-06
Shoot Date
Casting Category	Theatre - Non-Equity
Market(s)	Boston ,MA

---

"Jane Eyre" is a musical dramatization of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel. The play follows the first nineteen years of Jane’s life as she attempts to escape from the pains of her childhood and reach toward the opportunities she hopes the future will hold. Jane ends up as a governess at Thornfield hall where she falls in love with Edward Rochester, an enigmatic character with a secret.

All roles are available. Please prepare a 1-2 minute monologue and a song from the musical theatre genre.

Auditions are Oct. 1, 6:00-10:00 and Oct. 2, 7:00-10:00. They will be held in the Carey & Henderson Vocal Studios, 14 Court Street, Nashua, NH. All roles are available. Please prepare a 1-2 minute monologue and a song from the musical theatre genre.

Jane Eyre will be directed by Timothy L’Ecuyer with musical director Judy Hayward. Production dates are January 19-21, 2007.

For information, contact Judy Hayward at akborealis2001@yahoo.com.

Categories: Alert, Theatre, Jane_Eyre

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Dame Darcy's Jane Eyre - a review

Viking kindly sent us a review copy along with the two books to give away. We have been carefully poring over this new illustrated edition of Jane Eyre and these are our impressions.

Outwardly, the book is a paperback with a classic-looking spine made to look like leather. This contrasts sharply with the modern, colourful and powerful illustration on the cover. They are contrasting but oddly fitting too - this would be a proper description of this new edition in a few words.

The book includes the facsimile page of the first edition and the inscription to Thackeray as well as the different prefaces to the second and third editions of the book. This preface shows the first full-page illustration in black and white. In a very gothic atmosphere, a large-eyed Jane opens the door and beckons us in.

The book is divided into the three original volumes and the chapter numbers start anew in each of them, something modern editions rarely do anymore. At the end there is a brief biography of both Charlotte Brontë and Dame Darcy.

Dame Darcy's illustrations are one of a kind. They might look too modern to some people. They aren't certainly the typical woodcut illustrations we would be used to. Dame Darcy's take on Jane Eyre is as fresh and as new as Jane Eyre itself was when it was first published.

Despite the modern feel to them, we would feel very confident stating that these illustrations are among the most loyal and truthful not only to the spirit of the novel but also to the letter. A seemingly impossible balance between the two has been found and makes complete sense. Jane has dark hair, large green eyes and is petite. For the first time in many years, Blanche Ingram is a brunette as she is in the book and Mr Rochester would be understandably not described as handsome. Mr Rochester's eyes have been charged with huge dark marks as a way of displaying his 'secret soul' and innermost worries. The precise atmosphere of the book has been incorporated into each and every illustration. Dame Darcy does not draw 'by ear' - she shows time and time again that she has immersed herself in the story and is not afraid to defy apocryphal reads in favour of the true story. She has opted for illustrating many of the lesser-known scenes in the book or those that are usually left out: the gypsy scene, Jane's dream of the wailing child, Aunt Reed's deathbed, Jane waking up at the Rivers'...

The book comprises two types of full-page illustrations: black and white ones on the regular paper and full-colour ones on bright paper where the use of colour is simply exquisite. These full-page illustrations are usually accompanied by some symbolic 'accessory' that renders them both less conventional and more meaningful. (You can see a few samples here).The volume also features smaller but just as intense black and white drawings on the margins, corners... The scenes there depicted are not at all less interesting or relevant to the plot.

We are truly impressed with this book and would like to encourage one and all to enter our competition to win a copy. If you don't get lucky then you should pick up the book at your favourite bookshop: money was never better spent than in a wonderful story so vividly and unforgettably illustrated.

Categories: Books, Jane_Eyre, Comics, Review

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Teaching the Brontës, again

Almost one year ago, we presented an issue of Pedagogy that devoted some articles to how to teach the Brontës nowadays. In the present number of Pedagogy, the topic is revisited with a new article that uses the recent paperback edition of the Oxford Companion to the Brontës.

Hoeveler, Diane Long
"Approaches to Teaching the Brontës One More Time"
Pedagogy - Volume 6, Issue 3, Fall 2006, pp. 535-538

(excerpt)

Instructors of courses on the Brontë family now have another large encyclopedic resource to use in their teaching of the lives and works of the family. Like Heather Glen's recently published Cambridge Companion to the Brontës (2002), this companion surveys the lives and writings of all of the family, including the father, Patrick, and brother, Branwell, while also covering some of the minute details in the works of the three sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne. The question that I will address here is not which companion to use but how to use this particular resource. Of what use to instructors and students are detailed entries on specialized topics found in the lives and works?
The editors state in their preface that their purpose is to "evoke the milieu in which the Brontës lived and wrote, to disseminate new reliable research, and to provide detailed information about their lives, works, and reputation" (ix). With the assistance of seven other scholars and specialists on the Brontës, the editors have ably accomplished their stated intentions. This volume is as comprehensive as any instructor could wish, while at the same time also being specific and focused. For instance, the chronology at the front of the volume runs for almost twenty pages and places the lives of the Brontës into the context of larger literary and artistic movements as well as historical events (xxix–xlvii). In addition, the Oxford Companion includes numerous illustrations, including the drawings that Charlotte made to illustrate her early Angrian saga. Several useful maps are also provided, one that charts Charlotte's honeymoon tour of Ireland....

Although unrelated with this article, we remind the interested reader of the recent publication of Approaches to Teaching Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights.

Categories: Scholar, Journals

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Adèle's Dolls

A new alert from the Australian Brontë Association (ABA):

Friday SEPTEMBER 29th at 7:30pm in KIRRIBILLI
Marloesje Valkenburg: Adèle’s Dolls

As a child Jane Eyre was comforted in her loneliness by her shabby doll. Years later at Thornfield Hall little Adèle had a wax doll, no doubt a “cadeau” from Rochester. We shall imagine that Adèle continued to collect dolls into her adult life. Marloesje will show us some of the old dolls from her collection and we shall imagine that they once belonged to Adèle. The wood and wax dolls date back to the time of the novel, and many others could have been collected during Adèle’s lifetime. Marloesje will tell us something of the history of dolls and doll collecting. (If you have an old doll you would like to show us please bring it along.)

Categories: Alert, Talks, Jane_Eyre

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New videos of Wide Sargasso Sea

The BBC website for the upcoming film version of Wide Sargasso Sea has new videos of the production.

VIDEO CLIPS
		"DO YOU STILL THINK YOU'RE DREAMING MR ROCHESTER?" Antoinette and Edward start falling in love.
		"SECRETS AND TREASURE" Antoinette goes hunting for treasure.
		"THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE" Edward has an unwelcome visitor.

Categories: Movies-DVD-TV, Wide_Sargasso_Sea

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Haddon Hall on fire

If you have seen the first episode of the new BBC's adaptation of Jane Eyre, you are probably acquainted with the convincing fire scene that ends the first part of the series. Now imagine the scene where all Thornfield Hall (Haddon Hall) is in flames. In the novel, it is only explained, but it seems that in this production the fire is very real (look at the picture on the right. Credits: Don MacPhee/Guardian).

One of the first news items that was published about this Jane Eyre was related, precisely, to the shooting of that scene in Haddon Hall. Now The Guardian devotes a whole article to this scene.

The BBC could have done it all with computer graphics. Instead, they used real smoke and real flames and set Haddon, in the heart of the Peak District near Bakewell, alight on three consecutive nights.

"On the first night, there were 130 calls to the fire brigade in three minutes," said Janet O'Sullivan, the hall's administrator. "It's nice to know people care about us. But it was the scariest night of my life. As flames leapt from the windows, I kept thinking to myself, 'If this is going wrong, how are we going to know?'" (...)

"The special effects man was down below and was very calm," added Ms O'Sullivan. "'That's enough, thank you,' he said when there were sufficient flames."

Such was his skill that Haddon suffered no ill effects and is looking forward to a surge in visitor numbers as the four-hour adaptation gets under way. (...)

At the height of the Thornfield fire, Bertha plunges to her death from the hall's roof: "We saw [Rochester] approach her; and then, ma'am, she yelled and gave a spring, and the next minute she lay smashed on the pavement ... dead as the stones on which her brains and blood were scattered."

The BBC's stuntwoman did not fancy a similar fate following her leap from Haddon's north-west tower and said she would jump just once. "They built a platform over the steps and fixed a huge airbag on it," said Ms O'Sullivan. "Then she plummeted from the tower and the airbag just folded completely round her. She seemed to be there for ages but then the airbag just unfolded."

The production team, which spent four chilly weeks at Haddon in February, used many other of the hall's spaces, including the long gallery, which became Thornfield's drawing room, and the chapel, scene of the wedding of Jane (Ruth Wilson) to Mr Rochester (Toby Stephens), halted when a mystery stranger cries: "The marriage cannot go on: I declare the existence of an impediment." (David Ward)

Categories: In_the_News, Jane_Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV

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Irreverence is the new black

We have good memories here at BrontëBlog, and pre-BrontëBlog things are not lost forever. One of them is the background of Ms Tanya Gold, a woman who works for the Daily Mail supposedly reviewing stuff and most probably writing the same false stuff about Charlotte Brontë time and time again. On the occasion of Charlotte's 150 death anniversary she wrote an article called "Reader, I shagged him". This title only - we have the whole article so if anyone feels like having their stomach figuratively kicked just ask for it through our e-mail - and the new article you are about to read will give you an idea of what kind of writing this woman does. For those of you knowledgeable enough in Harry Potter matters, she would have been the Rita Skeeter of the Brontës' time.

Next to my bed, beside the tweezers, is a copy of Jane Eyre.
I cannot sleep more than a twitch away from Charlotte Bronte's novel — and neither, dear reader, should you. [...]
This novel is simply the best novel ever written by a toothless parson's daughter from Yorkshire — or anybody else. It's romantic fiction redux and it's there to heal your pain.
The plot is absurd and it goes like this. I (Jane) am an orphan. I am ugly. I grow up in a hell-hole. I go to a posh house (Thornfield) to be a governess and its owner, Mr Rochester, falls in love with me.
But he has a mad wife in the attic so I leave him and nearly die of exposure on a moor. But another man called Mr Rivers takes me in and he also falls in love with me. (So that is two men in love with me already by page 400.)

For her favourite book she doesn't seem to have got very well what St John's intention was and who he actually was in love with or what his concept of love was. Perhaps having the book by your bed and your tweezers is not enough. Those letters inside it actually mean something.

Then I inherit a fortune from an uncle but return to Mr Rochester because his wife has died in a fire. He is blind now, but I don't care because I love him. (I told you it was silly.)

It isn't silly. She made it silly.

The love of her life, Monsieur Heger, a master in a school she attended in Brussels, was married and indifferent; her publisher George Smith didn't want her either. When she eventually married her father's ugly assistant, his curate Arthur Bell Nichols (out of pity is my guess), she died nine months later at the age of 39 (out of disappointment is my other guess).

And once again - like in the olden times of her previous article - she made the mistake of assuming something she doesn't know about. Charlotte Brontë turned down several proposals of marriage. And just through a little research she might have found that Charlotte Brontë's marriage was a happy one.

Mr Rochester (I am back now from the reverie, but it was marvellous), whom Jane first meets when he falls off his horse, "has a dark face with stern features and a heavy brow; his eyes and gathered eyebrows looked ireful and thwarted". Do you get the idea? Do you recognise this tender brute from Barbara Cartland, Mills and Boon, Neighbours?

Judging by this and what comes afterwards, she would have done better to stick to Barbara Cartland. Clearly she doesn't really get the point behind Jane Eyre.

So Jane Eyre isn't the first book in the canon of love-starved fantasy. It is the canon. The only thing I can say against it is that it is indirectly responsible for Dame Barbara Cartland getting published.

Sure you do.

So why not take the best, the ultimate, the only? Go to bed with Rochester. He's only £5.99.

That would depend on the edition ;)

We recently talked about irreverence and reviewers. Well then, it looks like irreverence is all the rage right now.

Categories: Jane_Eyre, Charlotte_Brontë

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One more review, one more Brontëite

Andrew Billen reviews the first episode of Jane Eyre for the New Statesman.

To be avoided, on the one side, is the Scylla of the OTT Gothic novel: everyone knows there is a madwoman in Rochester's attic, but this adaptation reminds us that there are monsters on Jane's sketch pad, too. On the other side lies the Charybdis of a sloppy romance: Rochester, the Byronic owner of Thornfield, is the prototype for every tall, dark and smirking nob Barbara Cartland ever wrote about. But navigate between the two, and you discover the first great English Bildungsroman in which hero and heroine are given a sentimental education.

What's with today? Barbara Cartland's all over the place.

Let no one tell you this novel lacks absurdities. Rochester at one stage turns up in drag, disguised as a gypsy fortune-teller. On the page, you have Jane's voice to make credible the incredible. On television, you rely on your actors. White has cast perfectly. Jane is played by Ruth Wilson, an unknown 24-year-old fresh out of drama school. There is not a reaction shot in which she does not look intelligent, and not a line she delivers that does not suggest the thinking behind it. Her Donald Duck mouth and heavy eyebrows give her face too much character for beauty, yet any intelligent man might fall for it (particularly if the alternative is Blanche's porcelain mask). "That look," Rochester says. "No judgement, no pity. That look would pry secrets from the darkest souls." He says it with anticipation.

Donald Duck mouth?! Surely that's worse than especulating about her height.

There is no long list of character actors. Tara Fitzgerald, as the infant Jane's unloving aunt, is no sooner seen than gone. Richard McCabe stands out as vindictive Mr Brocklehurst, headmaster of Lowood School - but Eyre's schooldays are done with in ten minutes. Her friendship with Helen Burns is disposed of in half that time. Pam Ferris as Grace Poole, keeper of the first Mrs R in the north tower, is seen mainly bustling down corridors.
These excepted, every long shot is a composition of beauty. Most tell a story, too. The finger of God points down from a mural at a young Eyre, framed for lying. Her fellow pupils, dressed identically in white caps, are like clones. Respectable society is as uniform as the wooden coffins in which Helen Burns's fellow victims of onsumption are carried off.
The Derbyshire countryside has rarely looked so consistently cold and grey, either. Out of its mists, to confront Jane for the first time, rides Rochester: black hair, black cape and black stallion. But once at Thornfield, he becomes associated with warmth: orange hues lick his face at the fireside, the sun illuminates him on a picnic and, at the end of episode one, his bed is engulfed in flames. The question Jane will have to answer is whether the fire within is, or is not, hellish.
The conceit of the book is that while Rochester believes Eyre, in her sinless youth, to be in need of a sentimental education into life's horrors, it is he who ends up taught a lesson in humanity by her. His blinding - the symbolic castration that brings Jane back to him - is the creepiest moment in the book, not to mention the most absurd. I hope this magical adaptation has the sorcery to make us accept it.

It was too long ago since someone mentioned Rochester's - symbolic or not - castration. We were hoping we wouldn't have to hear it until after the last episode.

And now a Cuban Brontëite. Poet Pablo Armando Fernández talks about the moment he became a writer:

I became a writer when I was 10 years old after I heard on the radio the first episode of an adaptation of Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights. From then on I was another person and I prepared myself to be a poor, abandoned, lonely, and sad Englishman.

And this is not the first time that Mr. Fernández has said something similar.

Categories: Jane_Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Brontëites

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More on Quantum's After Mrs. Rochester

A couple of newspapers cover the performances of After Mrs. Rochester in Braddock that we presented on a previous post.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review talks about the auditorium, the play and Jean Rhys:

An auditorium stalled in mid-renovation serves as both setting and theme for Quantum Theatre's latest venture. (...)

Like writer Jean Rhys, the central character in "After Mrs. Rochester," the auditorium, the library to which it is attached and even the community of Braddock that surrounds it, have all endured despite hardships and reversals of fortune that should have ended in destruction.

"I thought it was right (for the play) because it reflects a quality she had," says Karla Boos, Quantum artistic director. "Like her, it's hanging in there."

"After Mrs. Rochester" moves backward and forward in time as it weaves scenes from the life of 20th-century writer Rhys with flashes to both scenes and characters from Charlotte Bronte's Victorian novel "Jane Eyre" and Rhys' childhood on the Caribbean island of Dominica.

Through flashbacks and present-moment interactions, it's a journey through the tortured past and present of the mentally fragile Rhys as she wrestles with what will ultimately become her 1966 novel "Wide Sargasso Sea."

"It's a series of vignettes," director Rodger Henderson says. "Rhys' memories of her past life are sometimes linear and sometimes out of sequence."

The play is set in England in 1957. But the audience also is inside Rhys' imagination as she works on what can best be described as a prequel or backstory to "Jane Eyre."

Bronte's characters -- Edward Rochester and his wife, Bertha, a madwoman confined in the attic of his ancestral home, as well as Grace Poole, the woman charged with taking care of the mad Mrs. Rochester -- all come to life in scenes that draw parallels between Rhys' past and present reality and that of Bertha's.

"It's the story of her, as well as the characters she wrote about," says Boos who plays Rhys. "It's about an artist trying to make a piece of work from her point of view who had difficulty trying to be an artist and a mother at the same time. She really moves me."

Rhys' struggle as a writer and a person also touched Henderson.

"What attracted me was (Rhys') survival. This isn't fiction, this is a real person's life," he says. "Her life is really decadent. She kept looking for her Launcelot. She became an artist's model, a prostitute. But in her own mind it wasn't for the money. She was still looking for her Rochester. ... Men would leave her because she was so (emotionally) needy, but continue to send her money."

By age 14 Rhys had read "Jane Eyre" five times. The novel and its characters haunted her, Henderson says. He likens the character of Bertha to that of a monkey on her back that she carried with her. In the play, the mad Mrs. Rochester follows Jean through her life, often interacting with the characters of young Jean and the adult Jean.

"You always carry that person who tells you the truth about your life," Henderson says. "By the end of the play, Jean accepts her."

The Post-Gazette is more concerned with the presence of Miki Johnson in the cast, playing the young Jean Rhys.

"It was an epic life," Johnson says of Rhys. "The play is all about the act of bravery it takes to write down your life and to live your own life and make a story out of it."

Making a life into a story condenses, highlights and even skews perception. "The play doesn't move forward like a train," Johnson says. "It's like explosions. How your brain thinks is how this play works."

"After Mrs Rochester" is being staged in the Music Hall of the historic Braddock Carnegie Library and also features Robin Walsh as Bertha Mason (the "madwoman" from "Jane Eyre"), with Mary Rawson, Hugo Armstrong, Linda Haston, Mark Staley and Dana Hardy. The director is Rodger Henderson, who also directed Quantum's recent "The Crucible" and "Dark of the Moon."

In the picture, Miki Johnson, right, joins Robin Walsh, left, and Karla Boos. (Source)

Categories: Theatre, In_the_News, Wide_Sargasso_Sea

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Brontë theater around the world: Jane Eyre and After Mrs. Rochester

The Quantum Theatre Company performs from today, September 28, until October 22 Polly Teale's After Mrs. Rochester in Braddock, Pennsylvania. These are the details:

After Mrs. Rochester

Two worlds: an exotic Caribbean paradise and the cold English moors. Two women: Jane Eyre and Bertha Rochester.

Jean Rhys (Wide Sargasso Sea) is a 20th century author who embodies these opposites. Playwright Polly Teale's After Mrs. Rochester brings Jean, Jane and the madwoman in the attic to life in a searing literary biography peopled with Rhy's demons.

Performances:

September 28, 29, 30
October 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22

September 29. Opening night performance with post show champage reception.
October 1: PPG post-show discussion with cast and distinguised guests.
October 6: Poetry of Braddock night, including a pre-show reception at 6:30 pm with filmmaker and Braddock native Tony Buba.

Braddock Carnegie Hall
419 Library Street
Braddock, PA

And, at the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the LADS (Locko Amateur Dramatic Society) of Spondon (near Derby, UK) performs a theatrical version of Jane Eyre.

Jane Eyre

Whilst having retained all the familiar passionate qualities of Charlotte Brontë's novel, Willis Hall has managed, with a minimum of fuss, to successfully transpose the 19th Century world of Jane Eyre to the stage.

Directed by: Corinne Eyre
Assistant Director: Chris Getty
Written By: Willis Hall, Adapted from the novel by Charlotte Brontë
Set and Costume Design: Corinne Eyre
Stage Manager: John Leach Lighting and Sound: John Leach

Cast
Jane Eyre Marie Stone
Bessie/Country Woman/Bertha Vicky Colclough
Porter/John Reed/St John Rivers David Shardlow
Edward Rochester Jonathan Leach

You can check the rest of the cast here.

Categories: Theatre, Jane_Eyre, Wide_Sargasso_Sea

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Alerts in Charlotte and Germany

Two alerts for today, September 28.

In Charlotte, North Carolina, a new edition of the Let's Talk About It series of talks:

1 p.m. Madwoman in the Attic: Female roles in "Jane Eyre," "Wide Sargasso Sea" and "The Yellow Wallpaper." Literary/book event. Free. University City Regional Public Library.

In Mörfelden-Walldorf, Germany, the local festival Begegnungen with Grossbritannien includes among many other activities, a ten days course on Emily Brontë at the University.

Categories: Alert, Talks, Emily_Brontë, Jane_Eyre, Wide_Sargasso_Sea

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Where Jane Eyre still is the big topic

As promised on Monday, Juliet Barker writes her opinion on the new Jane Eyre. Surprising or not, she liked this new adaptation:

Here we go again, I thought, as I watched a red sari-clad girl wandering across a desert in the opening sequence of the new BBC 1 adaptation of Jane Eyre.
Some egotistical director has decided to drag the nineteenth century orphan heroine of Charlotte Brontë's novel kicking and screaming into the modern world and make her 'relevant' to today's audience.
You don't need to do this, I lectured the screen. Why can't you just do a faithful adaptation that will let the characters and the story speak for themselves? Brontë knew what she was doing and that is why her novel remains one of the bestsellers of all time.
As it turned out, I was wrong.
The desert wanderer was indeed the young Jane, but she had only been transported from Yorkshire in her imagination by the book she was reading. (Pedants like me would point out that it was the wrong book and the wrong climate, but it was a striking televisual image).
Thereafter we were on safer ground as the wonderful Georgie Henley, fresh from starring as Lucy in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, perfectly captured Jane's stubborn, passionate nature and her refusal to allow anyone, or anything, to destroy her independent spirit.
Sadly, we saw all too little of her. In a way which, rather irreverently, brought to mind the Reduced Shakespeare Company, Jane's childhood and the privations of her miserable years at Lowood Institution were briskly despatched in the first 15 minutes of this hour-long episode, even though they take up a fifth of the novel and are pivotal in establishing Jane's character and setting up the story.[...]
He [Toby Stephens as Rochester] can turn on the brooding presence, sneer and curl his lip like the best of villains, but he never descends to melodrama.
And although his Rochester is rude, sarcastic, sometimes even cruel in his treatment of others, we are never left in doubt that beneath his unpleasant veneer, there is a sensitive and suffering soul.
Ruth Wilson is a newcomer but her quietly confident performance as the adult Jane is the perfect counterbalance to Rochester's fireworks.
So in the end this Jane Eyre did turn out to be a reasonably faithful adaptation of the book, as well as a compelling piece of television.
But isn't it odd that, even in the twenty-first century, no director is brave enough to do what Charlotte Brontë did so long ago and cast two plain people as the hero and heroine?

That last question has been repeatedly posed lately.

Marcel Berlins from The Guardian comments on Jane Eyre in passing too:

Marcel watched BBC1's Jane Eyre: "Eyre is just right, but Rochester is too nice and romantic far too early."

Incidentally, you can click here if you are interested in knowing what Ruth Wilson is doing next.

Bethany Gill - who played cousing Eliza - also speaks to her local newspaper about her work in this production.

"I went for the part of little Jane Eyre first and was shortlisted, but didn't get it because I was too tall and too old," she said.
"I was really, really, really, excited. I was not expecting it. I went for the audition and thought I had no chance."

Now, a couple of Wuthering Heights mentions:

PinkNews comments on the release of the first single of the last CD of the Puppini Sisters, their cover of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights (check this old post for more information).

In Spain, the ADN newspaper publishes a survey concening the books that you should read before you are eighteen years old: Wuthering Heights is one of the chosen ones (by writers Espido Freire and Jorge de Cominges).

And finally, as some sort of unrelated footnote, an interview with Maggie O'Farrell, whose latest book - The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox - was recently compared to Jane Eyre, talks to The Guardian about what she was reading while she was in the process of writing this book:

I ask her which authors she read while writing the book, and she mentions Margaret Atwood, the Brontes and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

We encourage you to read this book. Not to find whether it's similar to Jane Eyre or not - which it probably isn't - but because it's a truly compelling novel which screams some previously shushed truths.

Categories: Jane_Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, In_the_News, Brontëites, Books

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Brontë Society Gazette. Issue 41

The September issue of the Brontë Society Gazette (Issue 41) is already available. The Gazette editor is Richard Wilcocks (who also runs the Brontë Parsonage Blog, where some news that now appear in the Gazette were previously posted and is the present Chairman of the Brontë Society). The Gazette will be available for download in the Brontë Parsonage website.

In the Chairman's letter, Mr. Wilcocks expresses his wishes that the new Jane Eyre from the BBC (and eventually the new Wide Sargasso Sea) will hopefully increase the number of visitors to the Parsonage.

Theatres and cinema publicity departments often talk about ‘putting bums on seats’ when they are referring to some crowd-pleaser, which could be anything from the direst rubbish to a Shakespeare play on the current prescribed list for school examinations. I am guessing that these new productions will be the opposite of dire.

They might not put bums on seats in the Parsonage but they might well put feet on floors, which is what happened just over thirty years ago when Anna Calder Marshall’s passion was pouring from large screens and when the excellent Brontës of Haworth series was showing on small ones. Visitors to the Parsonage (and to Haworth) have been decreasing in numbers recently, so any increase, with the extra income it brings, must be welcomed. (...)

The contents of this issue are as follows,

Television Treats
About the on-going BBC adaptation of Jane Eyre and the upcoming Wide Sargasso Sea. (more info)

Using Scientific Tools
About Cornelia Parker's Brontëan Abstracts exhibition at the Brontë Parsonage Museum (more info).

The Brontë Project
Jennifer Vandever talks about her novel The Brontë Project.

Guests of honor
About the seventh-milion visit to the Brontë Parsonage Museum, last June (more info).

June Weekend 2006 by Coreen Turner
Covering the AGM Weekend, reporting the the presence of Justine Picardie, Anne Calder Marshall, Dudley Green ... (more info)

John Robert Turner 1938-2006 by Carol O'Dwyer
An article tracing the life of the former Treasurer of the Brontë Society, John Robert Turner.

Newly Acquired Letter
About the recent purchasing of a Charlotte Brontë letter by the Brontë Society (more info)

The Brontës in Pakistan by Wali Aslam.

The Brontës in Wisconsin
About the recent performances of the dance piece 'Written on the body' based in the Brontës' lives (more info).

Such a stimulating speaker by Coreen Turner
About the April 2006 Literary Luch with the presence of Lucasta Miller as guest speaker (more info).

Categories: Brontë_Society, Journals

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Win a copy of Dame Darcy's Jane Eyre

**CONTEST CLOSED**

A couple of copies of Dame Darcy's Jane Eyre have found their way into our mailbox and will be given away among the readers of BrontëBlog who reply correctly to the following question:

Was Jane Eyre illustrated when it was first published in England in 1847?

Send your answer to our e-mail: bronteblog AT gmail DOT com (if that doesn't look like an e-mail address to you, read it aloud) before Monday OCTOBER 9 (12 am CET) and if your answer is correct you will automatically enter the competition to win one of the two copies.

The BrontëBlog team has also got its own copy and will hopefully review it in the course of this week. Once the winners are announced on October 10 and their copy subsequently sent and received they might be expected to let us know what they think of it :)

This all has been made possible thanks to the kindness of Viking.

Good luck!

Categories: Jane_Eyre, Comics, Books

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Unexpected Brontëites and expected Jane Eyre reviews

We have discovered on the Deseret Morning News that Sister Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon played her role in Tim Robbins' film Dead Man Walking) is a Brontëite:

Her favorite book of all time? "Jane Eyre," by Charlotte Bronte.

We also read some days ago in Le Figaro another curious Brontë-connection in an interview with Woody Allen:

What are the last good plays that you have seen?

I have seen History Boys, a very interesting play by Alan Bennett, and Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet. It is quite strong. I think that I will attend Jane Eyre, I have heard it's ok.

We don't know if he was able to see it or not. At the time the interview was published, Jane Eyre was not performed, though.

And, of course news about Jane Eyre, the BBC series. There are lots and lots of reviews in the blogosphere about Jane Eyre. Impossible to quote them all. You can check Brontëana (with lots of pics), BroadCastellan or PennyforyourDreams (with lovely caps, as the one that illustrates this post) for instance, but if you google a little bit, you'll find dozens.

The third part of the production diaries by Diederick Santer is now online, tomorrow will appear the next one.

Categories: Brontëites,Movies-DVD-TV, Jane_Eyre

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Ralph Lauren's Wuthering Heights

Karie kindly sent us this picture of Ralph Lauren's new collection: Wuthering Heights. Neither the picture nor the actual clothes look much like something out of Wuthering Heights though - or do they?

WUTHERING HEIGHTS
Inspired by the beauty of the English countryside, heritage looks are romanced with luxurious finishing touches.

We are still surprised by this undercurrent of so-called influences of the Brontës - mainly Emily - in the world of fashion.

Categories: Wuthering_Heights

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Ratings, Reviews and Juliet Barker

The Digital Spy gives the ratings of last night's Jane Eyre in the BBCOne. It seems that our Jane was not the winner, but we all know that Jane is a long-time runner :P.

Midsomer Murders, ITV's murder serial starring John Nettles, attracted 6.7million and a 31.9% audience share over its two hour slot last night, beating the BBC's latest costume drama Jane Eyre. (...)

Jane Eyre, which stars Ruth Wilson in the title role and Toby Stephens as Edward Rochester, only managed 5.9 million viewers and an 24.5% audience share between 9pm and 10pm, raising slightly to 6.1million at 9.30pm, according to overnight figures.

The Australian reviews the performances of Natalie Weir's dance piece on Wuthering Heights included in ...With Attitude, that we presented recently.

The second half of the program is devoted to a new work by Weir. Using Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights as her inspiration, Weir delves enthusiastically into the emotional and psychological aspects of the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff, her true love and Edgar, her husband. Instead of allocating these roles to three soloists, Weir cleverly spreads the exploration across three representations of Catherine and of Heathcliff, depicting various stages of their attraction to each other.

The device is signalled clearly in the set and costumes by Noelene Hill.

The dancing from both corps and soloists is dramatic, full of risk and layered with a rich, emotionally driven dance vocabulary. This is Weir at her best.

Particularly powerful are Zachary Chant as Heathcliff, Clare Morehen as Edgar's wife and Adam Blanch as Edgar: they transform their dance into a heart-rending dialogue between pain, jealousy and despair. Claire Phipps as a young Catherine is rapturously passionate in her dancing - a quality not seen from her before - while Rachael Walsh is serene and tender as the ghost of Catherine.

The audience was mesmerised, a measure of how how well Weir realised this powerful work. (Shaaron Boughen)

An finally, icHuddersfield publishes a profile of Juliet Barker (that today is also present in the second part of BBC4's Reader, I Married Him):

Juliet, who now lives in Hebden Bridge, is a former curator and librarian of the Brontë Parsonage Museum - which she acknowledges was a dream job for a historian. She worked there for six years and in that time came to realise that although so many other people had written about the literary family there was still a wealth of unused source material. Her subsequent commisssioned book, The Brontës, is now considered one of the finest works on the subject. "I knew that I had all this new material and it was going to change the way people thought about the Brontës," she said. (..)

Tomorrow read Juliet's verdict on last night's opening episode of BBC 1's new production of Jane Eyre.

We will read it, indeed.

EDIT: We know that there are torrents and files out there with the episode one of Jane Eyre available to download. However, we will not publish any direct linking to them. We appreciate the ones that we have been provided but we are also aware of the dubious legality of posting them. Please, do not email us asking for them. If you are interested, we suggest you to make a search in blogger.

Categories: In_the_News, Jane_Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Dance, Wuthering_Heights, Brontëites

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Wide Sargasso Sea trail

A trail for the news Kudos/BBC4 Wide Sargasso Sea adaptation is now online. You can check it here. We remind our readers that the film will be aired in a couple of weeks: Monday, October 9, 9:00/10:30 PM.

Another reminder, tonight is the second installment of Reader, I Married Him (BBCFour, 9:00PM) with a lot Brontë-related topics:

An essential ingredient of any romantic novel is the hero. In the second programme of the series looking at romantic fiction, Daisy Goodwin investigates whether literary heroes give readers unrealistic expectations, or if, in the words of Jilly Cooper, they provide the ideal fantasy to "stop them jumping on the milkman".

The programme looks back to the 19th century, the Golden Age of the Hero, and the main archetypes – Mr Darcy, Heathcliff and Mr Rochester; what distinguishes them and makes them so enduring; and how they, along with Rhett Butler in the 20th century, have become the brand leaders influencing most contemporary writers from Helen Fielding to Sophie Kinsella.

Daisy discovers the key to penning a successful hero at a creative writing class with novelist Katie Fforde; and joins four readers in creating an e-fit of "their" Mr Darcy, with the help of the Met Police. Contributors include Tim Lott, Jilly Cooper, Joanna Trollope, Brontë biographers Juliet Barker and Lucasta Miller, and Andrew Davies.

Categories: Wide_Sargasso_Sea, Movies-DVD-TV

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Some press reviews of Jane Eyre

The press is starting also to publish reviews of the first episode of last night's Jane Eyre. These ones are not particularly good, but we are certainly puzzled by the reviewers arguments.

Caitlin Moran in The Times has mixed feelings. She thinks that Ruth Wilson is too pretty but sits well (sic)...

One of the pitfalls of adapting a classic book is your potentially controversial incursion into the readers’ firmly fixed imaginations. Thus: “Mr D’Arcy doesn’t look like that! Zaphod Beeblebrox would never have worn pixie-boots!”, etc.

However, while this is an understandable reaction on seeing a much-loved text converted to a visual medium, the viewer should, by and large, just accept someone else’s vision. After all, one of the many fabulous things about human beings is that we all see things very differently. Really, we should stop being so uptight that other people don’t think exactly like us and instead revel in the fertile cornucopia of humanity’s imagination. It’s like a holiday!

In someone else’s mind! Enjoy it! However, that all said, Jane Eyre (Sunday, BBC One) does absolutely, unequivocally, not look like that. Jane Eyre quite clearly has a round, plain, pale, oddly malleable face, which looks as if it’s been drawn by a pencil. The whole point of her relationship with Mr Rochester is that a man so used to exotic beauties (the French bird, the Creole bird) and rushed, tempestuous affairs, finally slows down, and appreciates Jane’s sane, wren-like vibe.

The BBC’s Jane, on the other hand, is one hot 19th-century governess. She looks like a chick in a Magnum ice-cream advert. She’s got flawless skin, tumbling hair, perfectly sculpted eyebrows and a frankly extraordinary upper lip: a fleshy, kissable duckbill, which appears to vibrate lasciviously in moments of high emotion.

However — and thankfully for the auspices of the rest of the series — Ruth Wilson’s beauty isn’t being made into a big issue. She isn’t going around being beautiful, if you know what I mean. She sits very quietly, and with a cautious stillness — as, indeed, would someone who’d spent most of their life in an evangelical Christian orphanage run by emotional sadists, and then suddenly found themselves living in a castle with a wolf, a sex-case and a mental.

Toby Stephens’s Rochester, meanwhile, while definitely not as tall as Rochester should be — he borders on Titchester, to be frank — is doing well as a sex-case living with a wolf and a mental. There’s a vulcanicity to him. He strikes you as an entity with hot, steaming vents on his lower flanks — even though, on unhappy occasion, his hair does fatally recall Hugh Grant in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

In all, despite an unpromising opening 14 minutes — involving the kind of awful child-actors Britain still seems inexplicably to specialise in — Jane Eyre seems to be shaping up well as classic Sunday night, sardines-on-toast sofa-bait.

David Belcher in The Herald is ... well, we don't know really if he is happy or not, but frankly we don't really care too much. But, why is he making this review if he considers Jane Eyre dull, silly and interminable?

Many years have passed, dear reader, since last I studied the printed pages upon which Charlotte Brontë unfolded her agonising melodrama concerning virtue going cruelly unrewarded and passion being rent asunder by duty's stinging scold. Why, upon laying Charlotte's accursed work down, I made a solemn vow which I cannot, on pain of death, gainsay: never to read the damnably dull, interminably silly fiction that is Jane Eyre again! (...)

Rotten book for ninnies; enjoyable telly show.

This ninnies' blog is frankly disappointed reading so much ignorance masked as irreverence.

Finally, Iain Heggie in The Scotsman is sorely disappointed:

Jane Eyre has a classic first-person narrator problem. The heroine is isolated and without a confidante. She can only pour her heart out on to the page. But what's she to do on TV? Voiceover is the obvious answer, but there seems to be an anti-voiceover fashion on TV just now. Certainly this adaptation has not solved the problem. Ruth Wilson, as any actor would, struggled to find ways of showing what was going on in Jane's mind. Charlotte Brontë's narrating voice in the novel helps one buy into the horse accidents, burning beds and mad maids in the corridor but, stripped of that voice, these incidents came over as the redundant plot furniture of gothic melodrama.

Voiceover is not a fashion or not. It's well used or not. And we don't think AT ALL that voiceover is the only option in a first-person narration adaptation. Most of the times, but not always, voiceover reveals a lack of imagination of adaptators.

For all her love of Thackeray Brontë is not a great satirist and the crude writing and acting around the snobs was so ridiculous I longed for Jane to take the piss as adeptly as *Pride and Prejudice's Elizabeth Bennet would have.

Here we are. Maybe the reviewer wanted to see another Pride and Prejudice. Funny, because when Pride and Prejudice was premiered last year, many critics complained because it was to Brontë-ish.

Having said that, though they are not exactly Bogey and Bacall, the best scenes are the more intimate ones between the two leads. The direction calms down and we're led fairly eloquently through their developing relationship.

EDIT: Sam Wollaston in The Guardian has the next three Sunday nights taken care of.

What's this? What is Jane Eyre (BBC1, Sunday), doing among miles and miles of sand dunes? Is this Jane Eyre of Arabia? Or perhaps the lesser-known sequel: The Wide Sahara Desert? Maybe it's sponsored by Fry's Turkish Delight - you know, "full of eastern promise". Oh, I see, it's just a fantasy she's having, reading books behind the curtain at Gateshead Hall, to escape her miserable lonely life and John Reed's bullying. Get to the red room, girl. I remember the red room - scary. (...)

It's all very stylised and gothic: the silhouette of a horse-drawn carriage on the skyline, the turrets of Thornfield against the night sky, the red curtain flying from Bertha's window in the spooky north tower. And it looks fabulous, but substance hasn't been sacrificed for style. Apart from galloping through the beginning, it seems to be quite faithful to Charlotte Brontë (from what I can remember - it's been a while). But it feels right. And there are two great performances - from Toby Stephens, as a fiery and brooding Rochester, and from Ruth Wilson, as an awkward, embarrassed but quietly determined Jane Eyre.

Categories: In_the_News,Jane_Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV

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Ruth Wilson's corset

Yes, that's what the Daily Mail highlights in Jane Eyre:

But the 24-year-old actress - the leading lady in the BBC1 adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's famous novel - found herself in agony after being forced to wear a tiny 15-inch waist corset.

Suffering with rashes and skin burn, the drama school graduate had to be issued with a new corset every two weeks.

'Poor Ruth was in constant pain,' said a BBC insider. 'She is naturally a very slender size 10 but the 15-inch corset that wardrobe gave her was simply minuscule and utterly restrictive.

'Three people had to ease her into it every day and she had to breathe in, sucking her stomach in, while someone tied the corset up from behind.

'She could barley move in it, let alone eat or exercise, so Ruth spent the majority of her days on set in absolute agony.

'Several corsets were used during filming to try and relieve her pain but due to reasons of continuity, they all had to be the same, ridiculously small, size.

'She had red marks and painful-looking indents on her ribs and tummy from where the corset had been holding her in all day.

'But Ruth was a real professional - a complete trooper - and didn't once complain.'

Categories: Weirdo,Jane_Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV

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First reviews of Jane Eyre

We just quote some of the (urgent) reviews that are appearing on the web:

Good:

TVScoop:

The relationship between Jane and Rochester (Toby Stephens) throbs with sexual tension and yet is allowed to grow and develop at a natural pace through the 45 minutes they're on screen together. (...) Wonderful stuff!

Silvercobwebs:

So far, taking into consideration that TV adaptations can never be 100% true to the original, and Jane was never going to be as plain as described, I think I like it. Rochester is suitably growly, snarky, with a hint of angst, and Jane hasn't been turned into some simpering love interest who makes googly eyes with her One Twu Wuv. (...) Anyway, I do have a great affection for the text. Jane is a wonderful heroine - strong, thoughtful, and she can banter along with Rochester as well as the rest of them. She makes difficult decisions, and abides by her moral code, but she is no bore. Definitely one of my fictional heroes.

Screen Stories:

Cinematographically there is much to recommend here. Colours are lush, suitably sombre-toned and Gothic, editing is fast-paced. There is a rather unsubtle motif in play - a red scarf occasionally wafting in the breeze from a window in the North Tower, where all of us who have read the novel know, lurks poor mad Bertha.
Overall this is highly watchable, if a little unoriginal in scope and treatment. (...)

Lukewarm:

La-Frileuse:

Visually it looks stunning: none of that awful artificial lighting that's
so obvious on 70s and 80s TV period drama. I think I'm unhappy with the changed
dialogue. It isn't as inappropriate as the dialogue in the 1997 ITV version but
it doesn't seem quite right. I'm not entirely convinced by Toby Stephens's Mr
Rochester either. He is a little too good looking. His facial features are too
fine and his received pronunciation accent doesn't fit the part. Ruth Wilson,
however, is very good as Jane. I don't mind that the early years were skimmed
over though I do think young Jane was too young: wasn't she supposed to be about
10 when she went to school? Adele may also have been too old. (...) Perhaps
certain scenes will rescue the adaptation in my eyes...

Bad

Cuturien

They have ruined Jane Eyre! BBC's latest adaptation is absolutely dire. Not only is Rochester's hair ginger, i mean did they even bother reading the book? The whole point is he's supposed to be dark, mentally and physically, not ginger and taking Adele, Jane, and Mrs Fairfax for a nature hike.

There is a bare minimum of original dialogue, again, did they read the book? The acting and casting is ridiculous. And the cameraman seems determined to shoot solely in interesting angles, at time i wondered if i was watching some 80s pop video. (...)

Categories: Jane_Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV

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Second clip of Jane Eyre available

The official BBC website for Jane Eyre 2006 has just made available the clip from the second episode and the second part of the production diary. We read the next installment of the diary will be made available on September 26 (Tuesday).

We are hoping that those of you who have been able to watch the first episode tonight have liked it very much and are still looking forward to seeing some more :)

Categories: Jane_Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV

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Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea and Brontë in one post

Radio Times has on its web the synopsis and the cast of the first episode of tonight's Jane Eyre. Brocklehurst's identity is finally revealed !

Dramatising as beloved a novel as Jane Eyre is fraught with pitfalls, given the potential audience of tutting malcontents watching like hawks for every painful snip at Charlotte Brontë's text. Now, I know it's only episode one, but so far this appears to be a thoroughly sympathetic and engaging version of the mighty classic. All right, so little orphan Jane's early years with her horrible aunt, then at the grim Lowood School are dealt with in the first, brisk 15 minutes. And poor Helen Burns, Jane's best friend, is quickly disposed of after the rapid onset of a particularly nasty case of Costume Drama Cough. But that's fair enough; we need to get grown-up Jane (the excellent Ruth Wilson) to Thornfield Hall and her fateful meeting with Mr Rochester (a similarly compelling Toby Stephens). Already the sexual tension between the two is sizzling, and the eerie atmosphere is building nicely, thanks to those strange
noises coming from the attic....
RT reviewer: Alison Graham

Jane Eyre - Ruth Wilson
Rochester - Toby Stephens
Mrs Fairfax - Lorraine Ashbourne
Grace Poole - Pam Ferris
Mrs Reed - Tara Fitzgerald
Young Jane Eyre - Georgie Henley
Mr Brocklehurst - Richard McCabe
Helen Burns - Hester Odgers
Adele - Cosima Littlewood
John Reed - George O'Connell
Eliza Reed - Bethany Gill
Sarah - Samantha Siddall
Bessie - Rebekah Staton
Miss Temple - Charity Wakefield
George - Ned Irish
Sophie - Elsa Mollien
Celine Varens - Eglantine Rembauville

The Jamaica Gleaner publishes an article about Jean Rhys, and Wide Sargasso Sea is commented like this:

Jean Rhys's work is disturbing on many levels. She writes of a composite heroine, the Rhys Woman - a lost and alienated figure who haunts the streets of Paris or London and who exploits her sexuality for a living. This lonely, bitter, and passive figure appears in all her novels except Wide Sargasso Sea, where she is transformed into a Caribbean heiress who has been virtually sold to the Edward Rochester figure from Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Rhys conceived of this novel as a way of talking back to the imperial text, creating a history and a humanity for Bronte's mad Bertha, Rochester's first wife who was locked in the attic of Thornfield Hall and who existed in Bronte's novel as a plot device to enable the Englishwoman Jane Eyre to save Rochester and eventually marry him.

And finally, Newsweek publishes an article about upcoming biopics and Angela Workman's Brontë is also mentioned.

Categories: In_the_News, Jane_Eyre, Wide_Sargasso_Sea, Movies-DVD-TV

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The sex-starved spinsters vs. the virgin priestesses of art

Lucasta Miller has been very busy of late and today we find another very interesting article by her in The Sunday Herald. In it she explores the influence of sex (or lack thereof) in the siblings' writing in particular and lives in general.

But the article is not only about sex but also about the perception the Victorians had of their novels and lives. It reminds us that Patrick Brontë allowed her children total freedom when it came to reading or writing - never censoring them certain plays by Shakespeare or Byron's controversial Don Juan. In the midst of an ever more puritanical society, the Brontës were allowed to judge and act as they thought best. And thus their novels came as a shock and were termed "unfeminine" and "coarse".

We encourage you to read the whole - though lengthy - article, but let us highlight a few sentences from it:

Back in 1853, the novelist William Thackeray patronisingly surmised that Charlotte was a “naive” woman so eaten up with frustration that she would have preferred sex to literary success, only she was too ugly to get a man. “Rather than have fame,” he wrote, “she wants some Tomkins or another to love her and be in love with. But you see she is a little bit of a creature without a penny worth of good looks, 30 years old I should think, buried in the country, and eating her own heart up there, and no Tomkins will come.”

This belongs to a letter from Thackeray to Lucy Baxter (March 11, 1853) where he condescendingly commented on Villette and its author.The extent of him being right or wrong is for you to decide. For what is worth it he also calls Charlotte Brontë a "genius" a few sentences later. This would be the similar impression George Smith had when he said that he thought Charlotte would have given all her fame and genius for good looks.

In life as well as in art, the Brontes had examples of unbridled sexual activity to draw on. Their brother Branwell fathered an illegitimate child and also had a destructive extramarital affair with Mrs Robinson, the mother of a boy he was supposed to be teaching.

We are a little surprised as finding Branwell's "illegitimate child" being talked about so matter-of-factly. Of course, Phyllis Cheney would wholeheartedly agree to that.

The book has been adapted so often – notably in the classic Hollywood version with Laurence Olivier – and has become so seemingly familiar that it is easy to be shocked by the strangeness of the original on rereading it. Hollywood makes it a conventional romance in which a poor lad is rejected by his sweetheart for another, richer man. Yet Emily Bronte’s Heathcliff is actually a sadistic psychopath, and his relationship with Cathy is a weird, semi-incestuous obsession which remains forever unconsummated. When it first came out, Wuthering Heights was, like Charlotte’s novels, attacked for its unladylike “coarseness”. But this referred less to its actually rather bloodless portrayal of erotic love than its “revolting” scenes of violence (the hero enjoys beating up the wife he has married merely as a tool of his own vengeance).

There's the real Wuthering Heights for those who consider it the epitome of romance. We love the novel but we'd encourage all those who think it's a lovey-dovey kind of book to read it again and reconsider.

Anne’s novel does not have the melodrama of her sisters’ more famous works, and is in many ways an anti-romantic story. But it is far more explicitly feminist, arguing, for example, against the misogynistic injustice of the divorce laws of the period, under which women had no rights even in regard to their children. In some ways, despite its strong moral tone, it shocked Victorian readers even more than Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights because of its uncompromisingly naturalistic portrayal of “vice”.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is such an extraordinary novel that it saddens us that to this day it remains so obscure.

Where Thackeray looked down on Charlotte as a sex-starved spinster , the feminist writer May Sinclair worshipped her as a “virgin priestess of art”, and was devastated to discover that her idol had fallen, all too humanly, in love with a married man.

Rather than demean or idealise the sisters’ lack of experience, though, it is perhaps more helpful to look at its practical consequences. The fact that the Brontes did not spend their 20s in endless childbearing did of course give them the time and mental space to develop their talents as writers, something which few married women of their generation would have had. It is this, perhaps, rather than any simplistic Freudian need to redirect their sex drives, which enabled them to produce their great novels.

And we will agree 100% to that. Although we would like to remind our readers that child-bearing and writing weren't so self-excluding since - for example - Elizabeth Gaskell managed it.

Categories: In_the_News, Charlotte_Brontë, Emily_Brontë, Anne_Brontë, Jane_Eyre, Villette, Wuthering_Heights, The_Tenant_of_Wildfell_Hall

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Branwell's 158 death anniversary

We stick by what we said on his birthday. But we would also like to add what his friend Grundy said about him.

P.B.B.was no domestic demon; he was just a man moving in a mist who lost his way. More sinned against than sinning...

Categories: Branwell_Brontë, Reminder

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More locals talk about Jane Eyre

The Yorkshire Post publishes a short article about Bethany Gill who plays Eliza in tonight's episode of Jane Eyre.

Bethany Gill, from Wilsden, near Bingley, makes her professional acting debut in it as Eliza, Jane Eyre's cousin.

The 12 year old was originally shortlisted to play the part of a young Jane Eyre and although the programme's producers eventually chose someone else they asked her to take the role of Eliza. She said: "When my mum told me I was really really happy, I wasn't expecting it at all."

Bethany, a pupil at The Girls Grammar School, in Bradford, spent three days on set and enjoyed all the trappings of television stardom.

She said: "I got there and I had my own caravan with my own name on it. It's so exciting having people do your hair and make-up and someone to help you get dressed.

"I definitely would like to do more. I want to be an actress when I get older."

Bethany's family and friends are gathering at her home tomorrow night to see the first part of the drama.

Bethany is not the only Yorkshire girl in the programme. Georgie Henley, from Ilkley, plays the young Jane Eyre.

EDIT (26/09/06): ThisisBradford publishes another article on Bethany's role in Jane Eyre here.
Categories: In_the_News, Jane_Eyre, , Movies-DVD-TV

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The Pursuit of Happiness and more

Today is the day, the first episode of the, slightly announced on this blog, new BBC production of Jane Eyre. But today, Sunday 24 September, there are other Brontë-related alerts around:

We have a recital of poetry with music. With Emily Brontë's among others.

The Pursuit of Happiness
Dates: 24th Sep 2006 : Players Theatre, Thame, Oxon

Description: Jenny Agutter with Jeremy Polmear (oboe, cor anglais and alto sax) and Diana Ambache (piano)

Experiences of happiness are explored in words and in music. Jenny Agutter reads from Shakespeare, Emily Bronte, Roger McGough, William Blake, Oliver Postgate, Iain Banks and others. Jeremy Polmear and Diana Ambache play from Purcell, Bach and Mozart to Ravel, Cole Porter and George Gershwin.

And we have also a very special performance of LipService's Withering Looks that is currently on tour.

Special, because it will be performed in Haworth itself, as a part of the Radical Brontës Festival. Check the time... Hmph, the attendants will have to set their videotapes !

Withering Looks

Tickets are £10 (adults) / £6.00 (children) and should be booked in advance. Ticket price includes admission to the Brontë Parsonage Museum on the day of the performance.
West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth
Information and bookings > 01535 640194

Categories: Music, Poetry, Emily_Brontë, Humour

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