'Modern theatre at its best'

Theatre Scotland reviews Wise Children's Wuthering Heights at the King’s Theatre Edinburgh.

However, in this production of Wuthering Heights you can expect to be by carried through the story with music and dance and the ensemble who play the role of the moors and they will be your guide.   

Liam Tamne was the perfect Heathcliff. At the beginning of the show the audience are presented with this mysterious man who is dark and brooding but as we flashback to Heathcliff as a boy, we see him trying to fit into the new family he has been adopted into. In scenes with Catherine as children we see them laughing and having fun together. Tamne did well to differentiate between these different moments in Heathcliff’s life and he was very versatile.  

Lucy McCormick has a palpable energy as Catherine Earnshaw. Again, much like Heathcliff we see Catherine move through life and as the story unfolds and Lucy did well to discern between the different points in Catherine’s life. The older she got the more the audience saw her character spiral out of control. Lucy also had a fantastic voice and her rock ballad at the end of act one was exceptional. I really enjoyed Lucy’s performance however I did feel sometimes she portrayed Catherine too hysterical. (...) 

Nandi Bhebhe does a sublime job at the Leader of the Moor. She had a magnificent voice and her fluidity of movement was astounding.  Nandi acted as the narrator of the show and did well to lead the audience through the story.  

The ensemble was an integral part of this show as they played the role of the Moor. They all had great energy. The ensemble for this performance consisted of Katy Ellis, TJ Holmes, Jordan Laviniere and all of the cast member mentioned above as well. (Alison Jeni Frater)

North West End UK reviews it too.

This is modern theatre at its best using multi-rolling, song, interpretive movement, puppetry and even a live band. The set is minimalist yet beautiful with the main stage wings being removed exposing the full team of stagehands and cast. Most of the set is made up of a single wall featuring several doors that can be flipped and used on either side and a series of chairs and ladders stacked on top of one another. There is also a projection in the back of the stage used regularly to depict the ever-changing Yorkshire weather. [...]

McCormick is hauntingly mad giving Catherine a childlike yet worryingly unstable characterization. It’s clear to the audience that Catherine is making the wrong decision repeatedly but in her mind, she is just thinking selfishly like a child, throwing a tantrum when she doesn’t get her way. It’s not that she doesn’t care for Heathcliff she’s just not mentally mature enough to understand his thoughts and feelings.

Tamne takes us on an emotional roller coaster as Heathcliff making us fall in love with the character, pity him and eventually hate him. His performance is stunning.

Katy Owen has her audience belly laughing bringing the comedic value to the show whilst also playing two lead roles that follow tragic story lines and Nandi Bhebhe brings more laughs with her strong and confident Leader of the Moor.

This cast is exceedingly strong also featuring Sam Archer, Tama Phethean and Mirabelle Gremaud as well as many more bringing multiple characters to life.

Whilst the plot is rather complicated at times with a lot to keep up with, it makes for a fantastic watch. Emma Rice has once again brought a much-loved novel to life and gave it colour with music and modern theatrical techniques. There are of course moments that may baffle the watcher, such as Catherine breaking into a rock ballad halfway through but nothing too bizarre.  I highly recommend giving the show a go even if you don’t think it’s your usual thing, the three hours soon fly by. (Beth Eltringham)

iNews interviews writer Esther Freud.

Which fictional character most resembles you?

I would have to say the depiction of my childhood self in Hideous Kinky, my first novel. But if that’s not allowed, Anna in Jean Rhys’s Voyage in the Dark, and Jane Eyre, for her determination and her receptiveness to other worlds.

Speaking of Jean Rhys, The Guardian reviews her new biography by Miranda Seymour, I Used to Live Here Once.

Seymour reserves most space for discussions of Wide Sargasso Sea, which some consider Rhys’s masterpiece. One moment in her reading stands out, in the context of Seymour’s interest in ghostliness: “Locked away by a husband who scorns and seeks to banish her (‘She was only a ghost. A ghost in the grey daylight’), Antoinette refuses to become another in that anonymous throng of nameless sufferers, that nearly inaudible incantation from the depths of the Great Forest”. It was reading this passage that I realised: Rhys’s fiction is an attempt to prove that she has been there, lived there, dwelled there; that the ghostly women she conjures up eluded even those they were standing before, plain as day. Rhys wrote to keep from becoming a ghost. (Lauren Elkin)

In The Independent, writer Holly Williams talks about her debut novel What Time is Love?

That said, I don’t believe any of us are defined solely by our circumstance – and ‘love-across-the-divide’, where seemingly insurmountable differences of background or opportunity are overcome in the name of love and fate, has always formed a classic love story narrative and structure. From Romeo and Juliet to Jane Eyre to The Notebook, we recognise and have a huge appetite for these stories. Within them, love usually overcomes all. But it would be naïve to think that, even today, circumstances beyond our control – be that class, gender, sexuality, education, or privilege – don’t impact on who we meet, and how we love.

Tanya Gold discusses moving from London to west Cornwall with her family in The Jewish Chronicle.

I must be honest. I moved to Cornwall for love and a utility room. I was trapped in the giant squid of London housing and London schools with a man who hates London. We lived above a betting shop in Gospel Oak, and I fantasised about a two-bedroom flat in Muswell Hill near outstanding state primary schools. I even dreamt of Muswell Hill one night, imagining it as a walled white city like Gondor in Middle Earth, on an escarpment overlooking the City of London with flags fluttering on its walls. The gates were shut. My subconscious knew it and so did my husband: Gondor/Muswell Hill was closed to us.

He is a comic among other things, and he understands the importance of timing. I showed him the particulars of the two-bedroom flat in Muswell Hill and suggested that, because one outstanding state primary school in Muswell Hill had a vast, paper model of Jane Eyre in its library, our son must attend it “because it’s destiny”. 

The Times discusses the 'real reasons' writers use pseudonyms and obviously brings up the Brontë sisters. Vanity Fair (Spain) looks at the favourite books among European royalty and lists Wuthering Heights as a favourite of Kate Middleton's. Book Riot lists the Twilight-inspired edition of Wuthering Heights as one of 'the worst covers of classic books'.