A brand new production of Jane Eyre, based on Sally Cookson, Mike Akers and the original company's adaptation of the Charlotte Brontë novel, will come to the Mercury Theatre Colchester in September.

Jane Eyre will be directed by Lily Dyble as a result of her winning the 2025 Royal Theatrical Support Trust Sir Peter Hall Director Award.

The co-production, supported by a grant from the RTST, will premiere at the Mercury Theatre from 26 September to 10 October, before touring to Rose Theatre from 13 to 24 October, Northern Stage from 3 to 7 November and Storyhouse from 10 to 21 November. [...]

Director, Lily Dyble says, “What I see at the heart of this story is courage in the face of the unknown. Jane Eyre reminds us of the risk and enormity of love, but also how uncertainty can breed hope, as well as fear; that we can choose to fiercely love each other and ourselves, even within chaos, and even when our old lives have been lost to the fire. I'm thrilled to be bringing Jane's story to audiences across England this autumn, with the support of four wonderful venues and the RTST.”

Artistic Director of Mercury Theatre, Natasha Rickman says, “We are absolutely delighted to be working with Lily Dyble, who is a director of real vision and talent. We are thrilled also to be co-producing this with our friends at the Rose, Storyhouse and Northern Stage, and to be collaborating with the brilliant RTST; the Sir Peter Hall Director Award spotlights so much extraordinary talent throughout their process each year, and it was a joy to meet so many brilliant artists. I cannot wait to see Lily's staging of this epic and gripping story and to share it with audiences across the country, alongside our co-producers.” (Stephi Wild)

There’s a certain pull to stories that take something familiar and rework it into something new. With The Chateau on Sunset, Natasha Lester has taken Jane Eyre and placed it inside one of Hollywood’s most infamous hotels, the Chateau Marmont. The result leans into the glamour of the era while exposing what sat behind it. [...]

The idea did not begin in Los Angeles. It came to her on a train in Italy.

“I was sitting on a train to Florence, thinking about books I’d enjoyed,” Lester says. “Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano was one, which is loosely based on Little Women. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver was another. Suddenly the idea popped into my head as I looked out at the Northern Italian countryside. What if I did something like that with one of my favourite books, Jane Eyre?”

That moment shaped the direction of the novel. It also changed how she approached the story. She started with a literary foundation and asked what might happen if it unfolded in a place defined by fame, power and secrecy.

Her connection to Jane Eyre runs deeper than admiration. It is tied to what she believes the original heroine never truly received.

“Jane Eyre was a woman who yearned for liberty. She looked at the horizon and longed to go beyond it,” Lester says. “The ending is romantically satisfying, but she never really got what she most wanted. That didn’t seem fair.”

That sense of unfinished business became central to the novel.

“I wanted to write a story where Jane got both a romantically satisfying and a personally satisfying ending. An ending that such a great heroine deserved.”

The Chateau Marmont plays a strong role in the story, and its presence came about unexpectedly.

“I was struggling to find the voice of the story,” she says. “I started handwriting pieces just to see where my imagination would take me. In one of those, the Marmont took on a voice and a sense of itself. I loved it.”

From there, the hotel developed into something that feels watchful, holding onto the secrets of the people who pass through it. That reflects the real history of the Marmont, long associated with excess and scandal.

Researching Hollywood’s Golden Age revealed a version of the era that contrasts sharply with its polished image.

“There was a lot of ugliness beneath the glamour,” Lester says. “Women were fighting every day against a very male-controlled studio system that wanted to take away their power.”

That tension carries through the novel, particularly in how women were labelled, controlled and often silenced. Many of those stories were hidden or reframed at the time. (Emily Darlow)

A plague of beetles have caused havoc for visitors flocking to the village made famous by classic novel turned current blockbuster Wuthering Heights. Swarms of the flying insects created mayhem when they descended on the picturesque village of Haworth where people travel from all over the world to visit the Parsonage where the Brontë sisters Emily, Charlotte and Anne lived.

The aggressive beetles descended during last week’s warm weather converging on the mass of visitors making a homage to the historic West Yorkshire village, and now museum bosses and hospitality venues are bracing themselves for more summer swarms with warmer weather again on the horizon. According to one member of staff at the Parsonage the insects “came out of nowhere” on Wednesday lunchtime and were the worst he had ever experienced. He told people being as they queued outside the venue: “I was in the adjacent fields this morning and they were not there then, but suddenly around lunchtime they just appeared. There are lots of fields around so flies insects are not unusual but I’ve never known anything quite like this.”

One visitor Amelie, 21, from Edinburgh told how she had been enjoying al fresco lunch with her family on a café on the main street when they were suddenly “bombarded.”

She said: “We’d just found a lovely sunny spot and had just ordered our lunch when I spotted a beetle land on my drink glass. Then another landed, and another, and then I started feeling them on my neck, on my arms and on my legs. They were everywhere and by the time our meal arrived, we and everyone around us were swatting away like mad.

“But it got even worse once we joined the queue for the Parsonage and was so bad at one stage we considered abandoning our trip. It was better once we got inside, but they had found their way inside everyone’s clothing and it was pretty horrible to be honest. We were still finding them hours after we left Haworth – they seemed pretty invincible bugs but at least they didn’t bite. I hope it’s not a sign of things to come this summer.”

Katherine Hill, 53, from Leeds said: "It was such a beautiful spring day in one of my favourite places to visit. But the beetles caused mayhem, people were pulling them out of their shoes, their clothing, their hair and their ears. They were so small and there was just no escape - even inside the museum." (Paul Jeeves)

   

"Stillness in the Red-Room”: Grammatical Suspension in Jane Eyre

by Dong Xi

The Explicator, 1–7. httsp://doi.org/10.1080/00144940.2026.2630258

The red-room episode in Jane Eyre¹ has long been recognized as one of the novel's most disturbing scenes. Critical discussions have variously approached it as formative psychological trauma (Gilbert and Gubar 336–71), feminist "prison" imagery (Armstrong 59–95; Showalter 100–30), or Gothic spectacle (Milbank 140–57). These readings converge in treating the episode as an origin point whose significance lies in its psychological aftereffects. Within such interpretations, earlier confinement is the perfective and superseded past, and Jane's maturation gradually unfolds toward autonomy.²

While these interpretations persuasively account for the red-room's psychological and symbolic force, the present article shifts the critical focus from what the episode signifies to how it temporally operates, arguing that the red-room functions not as a completed origin but as a grammar of unfinished time sustained and reproduced through syntax.³

Jane Eyre repeatedly resists linear containment. The red-room is not a concluded episode safely lodged in the past. Instead, the novel continually reactivates the conditions of the red-room through grammatical structures that suspend temporal resolution. Across the novel, Brontë reproduces this temporal logic, recasting the red-room from a traumatic origin into a governing structure of unfinished time—what this article terms stillness.

   

After delivering an impressive $32.8 million domestic opening, Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi’s steamy romance went on to gross $84 million in North America. It currently ranks as the sixth-highest-grossing release of 2026 domestically, as per Box Office Mojo. Following its U.S. theatrical debut on February 13, the romantic drama effectively ended its North American run on Thursday (April 9), when it collected $8k across 58 locations. That said, the film is still playing in some international markets. [...]

Milestone No.1 – $250 Million Worldwide Total

In addition to its $84 million domestic haul, the film earned $156.4 million from overseas markets, which resulted in a worldwide total of $240.4 million. This means Wuthering Heights is still short of around $9.6 million to reach the $250 million worldwide benchmark. As it is already nearing the end of its ongoing run, it appears unlikely that it will be able to achieve this milestone.

Wuthering Heights – Box Office Summary

North America: $84 million

International: $156.4 million

Worldwide: $240.4 million

Milestone No.2 – $50 Million Theatrical Surplus

Since Wuthering Heights was made on an estimated production budget of $80 million, it needed to earn $200 million globally to break even at the box office, using the 2.5x multiplier rule. Based on this calculation, the film has generated a theatrical surplus of $40.4 million. However, reaching the $50 million theatrical surplus mark seems to be unlikely at this stage.

Milestone No.3 – All-Time Top 1000 Domestic Chart

To break into the all-time top 1000 films at the domestic box office, Wuthering Heights needed to surpass Peter Pan’s $87.4 million North American total. To reach that milestone, it needs to bring in an additional $3.4 million domestically. However, since the film has effectively ended its original domestic run, it won’t be able to reach that target now. (Pranshu Awasthi)

   

An online alert for tomorrow, April 14:

Brontë Birthplace Events

Monthly Talk: Helen MacEwan “The Brontës in Brussels"

Date: Tuesday 14 April 2026 via Zoom at 18.30

In 1842, a few years before becoming bestselling authors, Charlotte and Emily Brontë travelled to Brussels to improve their French. For Charlotte, her two years as a pupil and then teacher at the Pensionnat Heger were pivotal for her, both as a writer and personally. Life in a foreign city and the influence of her literature teacher Constantin Heger, for whom she developed something of an obsession, shaped her intellectually and emotionally and gave birth to two novels, Villette and The Professor. Drawing on Charlotte’s letters and novels, Helen MacEwan will look at her experiences in the Belgian capital -both positive and negative – and how these fed into her writings.

Helen MacEwan is a retired translator and former teacher who has lived in Brussels for the last 20 years. Shortly after moving to the Belgian capital, she re-read Villette and became fascinated in Charlotte and Emily’s time in the city and the novels that came out of it. Helen is the author of The Brontës in Brussels and of Through Belgian Eyes: Charlotte Brontë’s Troubled Brussels Legacy. She has also written the life of Winifred Gérin, the renowned Brontë biographer. Her book Down the Belliard Steps: Discovering the Brontës in Brussels recounts her adventures as founder of the Brussels Brontë Group, which has been promoting interest in the Brontës through talks and guided walks since 2006.

   

Wuthering Heights succumbs under the pressure of new releases and ends its theatrical run at the box office in North America after over a month [sic: nearly two months]. The film ended its theatrical run on its 8th Thursday as it lost its last few theatres in North America. The film is being played in a few markets overseas. [...]

According to trade analyst Luiz Fernando‘s report, Wuthering Heights has concluded its box office journey at the North American box office. It grossed just 8k on its 8th and final Thursday over the last 58 theaters still playing it. The film’s domestic total reached $84 million, bringing its theatrical run to an end. Wuthering Heights is concluding its box-office run as 2026’s 6th-highest-grossing film domestically.

The period drama starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi collected $156.4 million at the overseas box office. It is still running in a few overseas markets. Allied to the $84 million domestic cume, the movie’s worldwide collection stands at $240.4 million. It will end its global run below the $250 million milestone. It is still the 5th-highest-grossing film of 2026 and the highest-grossing romance drama of the year. [...]

Box office summary

Domestic – $84.0 million

International – $156.4 million

Worldwide – $240.4 million (Esita Mallik)