'This Jane Eyre is in control'

The Guardian gives 4 out of 5 stars to the Jane Eyre production at Stephen Joseph theatre, Scarborough.

Not content with staging Chris Bush’s lucid new adaptation of Jane Eyre, the Stephen Joseph theatre is throwing on a whole Brontë festival. On the streets of Scarborough, Lisa Cagnacci’s audio walking tour gives you a blast of constitutional sea air before leading you up the hill to Anne Brontë’s grave. Back in the theatre, there are film screenings, children’s play sessions and, on Thursday, a brilliant lecture on Charlotte Brontë by Sassy Holmes of the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

She makes connections between Jane Eyre and Taylor Swift’s Invisible String by way of Cary Joji Fukunaga’s 2011 movie, before picking apart the protofeminist significance of the oft-quoted “Reader, I married him”.

She also points out that, in Zoë Waterman’s fluid production, Eleanor Sutton plays not only the lead role but also Bertha Mason, the mad woman in the attic. It is as if Bertha is a projection of Jane’s animal nature; less a character than a symbol of repressed instinct. In this Beauty and the Beast narrative, it isn’t only the untamed Edward Rochester who must conquer his demons.

Elsewhere, this Jane Eyre is in control – so much so that when Bush’s adaptation kicks off at too brisk a pace, Jane stops the show and insists on a rewind. She is a woman determined to be at the heart of her own story. “I must have action,” she tells Sam Jenkins-Shaw’s Rochester. “And if I cannot find it, I will make it.”

That makes her relationship with Rochester all the more gripping. Sutton, with her hair pinned back and eyes heavy, has a plain-speaking severity. Not until after the interval does she allow herself a proper smile. In her grey dress, she is an austere match for Jenkins-Shaw in his dark coat and high boots. He is similarly direct, but behind his bluntness lies an intelligence to match hers. For all Rochester’s faults, Jenkins-Shaw makes him seem worthy of Jane’s attentions.

The in-the-round staging is light on its feet, the six-strong ensemble playing multiple parts, frequently carrying a musical instrument as they go. Simon Slater’s wistful folk tunes intercut the action, allowing moments of reflection in a brooding study of morality and desire. (Mark Fisher)

Yorkshire Live suggests '10 of Yorkshire's best walks that are perfect for a sunny Easter weekend' and one of them is

Brontë Waterfall

Its association with the Brontë sisters is what sets this waterfall apart but it is also among breathtaking countryside. Set in a valley surrounded by moorland and farmland, the area offers some truly beautiful walking and makes for a wonderful spot for photography. (Jess Grieveson-Smith)

Still locally, Mirror warns that, 'Steam trains [are] under threat due to shortage of coal as war in Ukraine halts imports'.

There are more than a hundred heritage lines in the UK, ranging from the 24-mile North Yorkshire Moors Railway celebrated on TV to tiny routes of only a few hundred yards.

They’re run by a small army of ­volunteers and a few hundred full-timers. Between them, they attract more than six million visitors a year – and they need 26,000 tons of coal to keep going.

Operators are searching for “black gold” from as far away as Columbia and Kazakhstan, and prices are doubling this year.

With the Easter opening of the season, the problem is becoming acute. The East Lancashire Railway was the first to announce cutbacks, using steam on busy days only. [...]

The situation is described as “an existential threat” to the industry, and as the Mirror’s puffer-nutter-in-residence, I was despatched to the Keighley and Worth Valley to find out if our steam railways are on a fatal track to oblivion.

The 10.50am is in the station, ready for the stiff climb up the valley to Oxenhope. At its head is No85, a historic survivor from the Taff Vale line in South Wales, built in Glasgow in 1899 and still going strong.

It was withdrawn by the Great Western in 1923, and worked in Durham collieries until saved by KWVR volunteers in 1970. It’s often paired with vintage coaches to portray rail travel from times gone by.

And today it’s just like a scene from the 1950s. On the platform, a huge clock like something out of the film Brief Encounter ticks away the minutes to departure time. Families crowd round the carriage doors.

Richard Walker, 54, has come here from Sheffield with his 10-year-old daughter Martha.

“We’re going to make a day out of it, stopping in Haworth to visit the Brontë Parsonage” he says. And what excites her? “The steam!” (Paul Routledge)

Valencia Plaza (Spain) reviews the new TV series based on Around the World in 80 Days focusing on what's changed from the original, such as the fact that Jean Passepartout is a black man, which leads to a mention of Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights.

La apasionante Cumbres borrascosas (2011), de Andrea Arnold, con un Heathcliff negro y una puesta en escena profundamente anticlásica. (Áurea Ortiz Villeta) (Translation)

Nice Matin features Aurélie Valognes and her new novel La Ritournelle.

En toile de fond aussi, la question de la charge mentale, celle de la place dans la fratrie. Une autre fois, la solitude des personnes âgées ou l’échec scolaire.

"Jane Austen, les sœurs Brontë, ça, c’est de la littérature, ça, c’est bien écrit", fait dire la romancière à l’une de ses personnages, aussitôt rembarrée. Autre message caché? "Bien sûr mais ce n’est pas quelque chose qu’on m’a dit à moi, j’ai eu la chance de ne pas être trop approchée par des critiques et je n’ai pas de revanche à prendre. Par contre dans ma famille, en dédicace, je vois des gens qui ont une idée de ce que doit être un livre et qui me disent, désespérés: ‘‘Mes enfants ne lisent que des mangas’’."

Mais lire, c’est aussi lire ça. Faire de la place à l’imaginaire, à la curiosité. On devrait avoir le droit à la lecture plaisir. Et je ne prêche pas pour ma paroisse, c’est juste comme ça que je l’expérimente: dans ma bibliothèque, il n’y a aucun ordre. Je ne vais pas mettre La Pléiade en avant pour rappeler que je suis écrivain, je ne mets que des livres coups de cœur. Il y aurait des bons livres à lire et des mauvais? Mais tant qu’il y a des émotions, tous les livres sont bons." (Amélie Maurette) (Translation)

Apparently, today April 16th is Husband Appreciation Day and so Metro shares some quotes for the day, including one from Wuthering Heights (a book in which husbands are not that appreciated, we would say).