Sunday 29 November 2020
Monday 26 October 2020
New Jane Eyre adaptation on YouTube
Julie Butters writes
I'm pleased to announce a new adaptation of Jane Eyre, a Zoom production by Flock Theatre of New London, Connecticut, in the United States. The film will be available for free streaming on YouTube starting 6 November at 12pm GMT. It will continue to be available after the initial streaming, to be accessed at any time. It lasts for just under two hours.
Find it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yYxWYQOlIw
The trailer is at https://youtu.be/e0eook-_7lA
and production stills are available at:
Best wishes,
Julie Butters
Adapter of Jane Eyre
Actress playing Jane
Julie Butters as Jane:
Gateshead:
Blog readers' opinions are welcome.
First review is here: http://janeeyre.net/Plays-available-online.html
Sunday 26 July 2020
Brontë Places & Poems - book review
Marina Saegerman writes:
A fascinating dive into the Brontë world!
In these weird Corona times when travelling is not advisable/not recommended/not desired or not possible, I came across this book by Geoff and Christine Taylor.
The book, which is lavishly illustrated with photographs, was a labour of love. Its authors have lived near Haworth for almost forty years and the book grew out of their trips to Brontë places in the U.K., Ireland and Belgium, with Chris, a keen amateur photographer and artist, taking the photographs. There are many photos of Brussels.
The beautiful front cover brings you straight to Top Withins and the Haworth moors, and on the back cover it says: 'The Brontë children lived tragically short lives but they have left a wonderful legacy not only with their novels and poems but in the descriptions of the places they lived, loved and experienced.' The book invites you to discover these locations and perhaps, if Corona allows for it, visit these locations yourself.
It is not a book that you just READ, it is book that you fully EXPERIENCE. It allows you to travel from your own home to Belgium, to London, to Ireland, to Haworth, to Scotland, to Cornwall, to Wales and to so many more Brontë-related places all in one day, if you wish. In a year when there is no AGM in Haworth, no annual holidays to Ireland (our normal holiday destination), no Anne Brontë bicentenary conference in Scarborough, and even no events of our Brussels Brontë Group in Brussels, this book was for me a wonderful revelation and a splendid way to travel around Brontë-related places.
It is a journey in images and poetry with explanatory texts from the authors. It is a perfect way to travel in Corona times and be near the Brontës without setting a foot outside. The journey is made chronologically and starts in Cornwall (with Maria and Elizabeth Branwell) and in County Down, Northern Ireland (with Rev. Patrick Brontë) and travels through time to visit all other places that are associated in some way with the Brontë family. The beautiful photographs are accompanied by explanatory texts and Brontë poems. You do not have to follow the chronological route, if you do not want to. You can start anywhere in the book, go back and forth as much as you like and discover, or revisit, Brontë places.
I have gone through this book many times now in all sorts of directions, revisiting the places that I have seen already (and enjoyed seeing again) and discovering places that I have wanted to visit for ages, but had not succeeded in doing up to now.
It is the perfect substitute for travelling to Brontë places when you cannot travel yourself. I enjoyed it tremendously, and I will continue to enjoy it! It is a real treasure of a book. To be recommended…..
July 2020
Monday 18 May 2020
Brontë Quizzes - Keeping the Flame Alive
Keeping the Flame Alive
John Hennessy
Sunday 16 February 2020
Ann Dinsdale - Living with the Brontës #LLF20
This illustrated talk is given by Ann Dinsdale, Principal Curator at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth. The Brontë sisters are known and admired across the world and much has been written about their lives and work. This talk will include the whole Bronte family, with special attention being given to Anne, the youngest sister, who has often been overlooked. Ann will draw on her experience as curator, bringing in some of the details that people may not be as familiar with, and using images of items from the Museum’s collection as illustrations.
This event takes place at Guiseley Library, based at Aireborough Leisure Centre. Inspiring the City is supported by Leeds Inspired, part of Leeds City Council.
Pay As You Feel, but please register - by going to the Leeds Lit Fest website - Thursday 28 November 2019
Anne Brontë Bi-centenary Events in Scarborough
January/February 2020
10th January – Woodend (runs until 8th February, 9am-5pm daily).
Opening of the art
exhibition at Woodend. Encapsulates Anne
Bronte’s novel, ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ in 200 pages &
artist’s representations of her novel. Free admission.
14th January – Woodend (2pm)
Lecture on ‘The
Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ by Tim Tubbs. Booking required: £5.00.
17th January – Woodend (7pm)
Evening
Performance of ‘Tracking the Brontës - a presentation with original music’. Booking required. £5.00 or pay at the door if
places available.
18th January – Woodend (2pm, 3.30pm. 7pm)
2pm: Afternoon
matinee of Tracking the Brontës - a presentation with original music. £5.00 at the door.
3.30pm: Talk by
Catherine Rayner entitled, ‘Buried in Paradise’ on Anne’s last days & the
ending of Agnes Grey and Anne’s final poetry, followed by Q&A & book
signing. Free admission
7pm: Talk by Dr
Edward Chitham on Anne Bronte’s poetry. Followed by Q&A & book signing.
Free Admission. Tea, Coffee and snacks available to
purchase, during the day.
19th January – The Grand Hotel (all events free
admission)
10.30am: Opening
of a day of celebrations for the life of Anne Brontë, (10.30-11am) Introduction
& presentation of Artists, Writers & Brontë representatives & local
dignitaries. Patsy Stoneman, Vice President of the Bronte Society will
introduce everyone at The Grand Hotel & thanks those who have organised the
celebration of Anne’s life & links with Scarborough & the Yorkshire
Coast.
11.15-11.45am:
Storyteller, Jan Bee Brown will entertain.
12noon-1.15pm:
Forum for discussion with Bronte writers and artists, includes audience
participation. Tea, Coffee and snacks available to purchase, throughout the
day.
1.45-2.45pm:
Storyteller, Jan Bee Brown will entertain.
2.45-4.00pm:
audience may partake of a walk to the beach to cast a pebble into the sea in
memory of Anne, followed by a walk to St. Mary’s Church.
St Mary’s Church 3.45-4.00pm:
The church bells will ring to welcome everyone.
4pm Graveside: Trish
Gurney, The Chair of the Brontë Council, will lay flowers on the grave and read one of Anne’s poems.
4.15pm: everyone
enters the church for a time of quiet reflection followed by a piece of music,
especially written for the occasion by Sarah Dew. Closing words from Patsy
Stoneman to end the weekend. Tea and
coffee and snacks can be purchased at the church.
Woodend Creative Workspace, The Crescent, Scarborough, YO11 2PW
Grand Hotel, St Nicholas Cliff, Scarborough, YO11 2ET
Thursday 9 May 2019
Ken Hutchison's devilish Heathcliff
Richard Wilcocks writes:
 |
| Ken Hutchison and Kay Adshead |
Browsing through the pages of The Crystal Bucket by Clive James, last read a long time ago
(published 1981), I came across his scathing newspaper review of the 1978 BBC
mini-series version of Wuthering Heights.
He described it as ‘the blithering pits’. Could it have been that bad? I found
that the series was in five fifty-minute episodes directed by Peter Hammond,
with a screenplay jointly written by David Snodin and Hugh Leonard and a
musical score by Carl Davis. I bought the DVD version.
Ken Hutchison plays Heathcliff , Kay Adshead is Catherine
Earnshaw. A number of child actors perform, with two assigned to the young
Heathcliff. In a display of enthusiastic ‘fidelity’, there is an attempt to
cover every single chapter of the novel, but the result inspired a mixture of admiration and ridicule in spite of the relative accuracy of its character representations,
and some false accusations that the BBC had commissioned the series mainly because of
the great success of Kate Bush’s famous song earlier in the same year. It took more than a few months to put together, of course.
The series is certainly not without merit. Clive James’s remarks possibly
refer to the hyperbolically histrionic Kay Adshead as Catherine, to clumsy
special effects, and a few inept attempts at melodrama, but Ken Hutchinson
plays Heathcliff as brutal, cruel and devilish 'as Emily Brontë conceived of
him', at least in the first few episodes. I was quite impressed. He is
an interesting contrast to the pin-up stars who in other versions have been
cast in the part, and there is hardly any obeisance to the myth of transcendental
romance created by the Wiliam Wyler version of the novel in 1939, unless a couple of scenes on Penistone Crag filmed at Ponden Kirk count as parallels to Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon on a rock formation somewhere near Hollywood.
Carl Davis, who had won much praise for the music composed for The World at War (ITV, 1973 – 74),
produced a superb score. True to the novel, and to C P Sanger's calculations, Edgar and Isabella first appear as
children of about ten years old through the windows of the Grange, where they
pull at a small dog, and Catherine and Heathcliff are shown riding ponies and
playing by a beck on the moors, but some of their actions are awkward, for
example when Heathcliff shrieks in a temper after Catherine, back from the
Grange, calls him dirty. It's easy to go over the top when adapting Wuthering Heights, which is already over the top.
There is an interesting dramatic moment when Nelly discovers the
generally neglected Hareton playing with his father’s gun and takes it away
from him, and another soon afterwards when the drunken Hindley, as in the
novel, holds him over the edge of a balcony, to be caught by Heathcliff. How
many adaptations include that? When he is a little older, Hindley is seen beating Hareton viciously
with a stick.
The stress on one of the novel’s strong themes - of child neglect and abuse - is significant,
because of the way most feature film adaptations gloss over or minimize it. The
presumed psychological effects of the abuse are also included: Heathcliff hangs
Isabella’s spaniel, to be rescued by Nelly, and Hareton is seen preparing to hang puppies
soon afterwards in the same episode, half-grown puppies. The domestic violence inflicted upon poor Isabella by Heathcliff is shown briefly but shockingly as he swings a heavy chain at her.
The final two episodes covering the second generation are straggly,
lacking dramatic impact, I guess partly because of the problem of constantly
visualizing scenes of violence, the actors seeming to tire, and partly because
the fixed desire for as much fidelity as can be crammed into four hours gives
the impression that the narrative is being covered in full out of a kind of
duty. Fidelity definitely has its limits.
It’s worth watching, though, if you have the
patience, if only because Ken Hutchison very nearly gets there with his Heathcliff.
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