'We might be telling different stories about the Brontës if Anne had been the survivor'

A contributor to The Reviews Hub gives 3 stars out of 5 to Underdog: The Other Other Brontë.

The play opens on Grace Smart’s beautiful depiction of a Yorkshire hillside. Gemma Whelan’s Charlotte commands the stage, thereby establishing herself as the chronicler. The hillside almost miraculously lifts around her, becoming a rugged ceiling to the action, which takes place chiefly on a bare stage. Presumably, this is meant to symbolise the influence of the landscape on the lives and work of the sisters.

Charlotte introduces Adele James’ Emily, and Rhiannon Clements’ Anne and the characters are quickly established. Anne is sweet and obliging, passionate about her writing but otherwise inclined to bend to the will of her more forceful siblings. Emily is fiercely private, with no interest in celebrity, and Charlotte is eager to establish herself in the literary firmament with an enduring legacy.

The three must fight a male-dominated literary establishment to publish their work, settling on the use of male pseudonyms. They are not only fighting the establishment; they are fighting among themselves, jockeying for position, as Charlotte contrives to publish first, her Jane Eyre effectively overshadowing Anne’s Agnes Grey, written earlier but delayed by an unscrupulous publisher, since both tell the story of a plain governess fighting an unjust society to make her way in the world.

After her sisters’ death, Charlotte having stepped from behind her male pseudonym, sets out to tell the sisters’ story in her own fashion, cementing her legacy and even preventing the republication of Anne’s most successful novel. The audience are given occasional hints that Charlotte’s storytelling may be unreliable, but it is unclear whether we are meant to be seeing the sisters through her eyes. Anne’s and Emily’s characters seem chiefly to be as we gather Charlotte depicted them after her death but she would hardly have portrayed her own character to be as domineering and self-interested as she is seen here.

The story of the women’s literary travails and their unfulfilled passions are played out in modern, uninhibited language that would likely have curled the hair of any 19th century lady. Much is made of their struggles against male oppression and of the feminist nature of some of their writing, though little indication of the actual power of the sisters’ writing is given. This places the emphasis on the social history and the feminist elements of the story, rather than the truth of characters themselves. This is justifiable, of course, but it makes the whole piece less involving than might have been hoped. The script is lively, irreverent and literate but the production does lag at times, despite a number of effective comic moments.

Nevertheless, the performances are uniformly excellent. Whelan is a powerhouse and manages to invest Charlotte with humour and some humanity. Clements is sincere and sympathetic as the put-upon Anne. Perhaps James’ Emily is rather assertive, given the reticence of her character as described, but that could be justified by considering the passion in her writing. James Phoon is given little to do but look brooding and dissolute as their alcoholic brother, Branwell.

Phoon and three other male actors play all the other parts. There are a number of amusing touches in the way they work, at times, like a Greek chorus. Julian Moore-Cook invests the two men for whom Charlotte had unrequited romantic feelings with a convincing aura of period machismo and Nick Blakeley gives delightfully arch sketches of Anne’s lady employer and Elizabeth Gaskell, the novelist who became Charlotte’s biographer.

Overall, this is an interesting portrayal of the lives and the social landscape of three important and fascinating writers. If it doesn’t entirely get to the heart of their characters, well, that is really the point of the play. As Samantha Ellis states in the programme, “We might be telling different stories about the Brontës if Anne had been the survivor.” (Jonathan Cash)

iNews discusses 'Bridgerton’s colour-blind fantasy'.

Even as far back as the works of Charlotte Brontë and her novel Jane Eyre, we have seen Black-coded characters demonised so that the white main characters can be exulted. Bertha Mason, a woman of mixed heritage from the West Indies, was relegated to the attic of Bronte’s novel, a caged threat to Jane’s happily ever after, nothing more than an obstacle for the book’s heroine to overcome.

Bridgerton seems to reserve its true horrors for its Black characters in a similar way, with even the cast working to bring this show to life suffering for it. With every new season that is released of the Netflix phenomenon, a new wave of toxicity is unleashed on social media, varying from racist TikToks with thousands of likes disparaging how “ugly” Black characters like John Stirling supposedly are, or tweets harassing any actor of colour who they deem to be a “bad character” on the show as fans did with actress Ruby Barker (Marina Thompson). (Ayaan Artan)

WTOP News on how to go back to reality after Bridgerton:

I sincerely hope you enjoy this new batch of episodes. Surely, many of you will binge them all Thursday night and have nothing left to watch this weekend (good luck transitioning to Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” in theaters Friday).

Might I suggest revisiting Brontë flicks like William Wyler’s “Wuthering Heights” (1939) or Cary Fukunaga’s “Jane Eyre” (2011); Jane Austen in Ang Lee’s “Sense & Sensibility” (1995) and Joe Wright’s “Pride & Prejudice” (2005); the great Merchant-Ivory productions of “A Room with a View” (1985) and “The Remains of the Day” (1993); and auteur gems like Martin Scorsese’s “The Age of Innocence” (1993) or Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” (2019).

There, that should keep you busy until the fifth installment of “Bridgerton” arrives in 2026 following Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson). Fortunately for fans, there are eight official novels to adapt, not to mention various epilogues, compilations and anthologies for an endless amount of material just waiting to arrive on screen. (Jason Fraley)

Similarly, Brit+Co recommends '10 Regency Era Romance Books To Cure Your "Bridgerton" Hangover' including

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre is another classic that is absolutely beloved. This famously depicts the struggles of a simple and plain young woman navigating life's many difficulties along the way. While Jane endures many hardships, she must learn to love herself to ultimately make it through. It's a lesson we can all relate to, in some way or another! Definitely a fantastic regency era read! (Kayla Walden)

Jane Eyre is also among the reads selected by the editorial team of The Public Discourse for this summer.