Fan Carpet discusses how Paul Gordon's score reimagines Jane Eyre in the current London production of Jane Eyre. The Musical:

The Lancaster Guardian has an article on the upcoming performances of the Conn Artists Theatre Company's new touring Jane Eyre adaptation at Lancaster Grand Theatre on Tuesday, September 22. Both The Yorkshire Post and the BBC discuss the Yorkshire tourist tax project and the possible consequences of its implementation.

   

A new German adaptation of Wuthering Heights is now being performed in Hamburg, Germany:

Sturmhöhe

Based on the novel by Emily Brontë

Adapted and directed by Franz-Joseph Dieken

Stage and costumes by Sabine Kohlstedt

With Richard Ciuchendea, Dirk Hoener, Mats Kampen, Antonia Leichtle, Linda Stockfleth, Celio-Silvestre Tamele and Marie Vögele

September 4-October 4, 2026

Altonaer Theater, Museumstraße 17, 22765 Hamburg, Germany

Catherine Earnshaw und Heathcliff verbindet eine obsessive Leidenschaft, die durch Standesgrenzen, Rassismus und Missverständnisse zerstört wird. Catherine heiratet Edgar und nicht Heathcliff. Dieser schwört Rache. Auf den windgepeitschten Mooren Englands entfaltet sich ein häusliches Drama. Selbst der Tod setzt dem kein Ende. Es geistert in Wuthering Heights: ein Strudel aus Begehren und Gewalt, der die nachfolgenden Generationen in den Abgrund zieht.

Emily Brontës Klassiker ist ein Stück über Sehnsucht, gesellschaftliche Zwänge, und die zerstörerische Kraft menschlicher Gefühle.

   

"Iconic" must be the most used and abused word in the reviewer’s lexicon - a single in the Top Ten and a slot down the bill at a wannabee Glastonbury festival is enough to secure that sobriquet these days. But Jane Eyre, the novel and the character, is certainly worthy of the descriptor, a lodestar for teenage girls (and, perhaps more quietly, teenage boys) seeking to find their identity and their space in a confusing and hostile world.

What sets Charlotte Brontë’s work apart from the countless coming-of-age stories that followed in its wake, is its date of publication (1847, earlier than both David Copperfield and Great Expectations) and the deep psychological insight it provides into a girl’s transformation into a woman. Readers had seen some of that with Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice and in Jane Austen’s Emma, but they had much more going for them than this impoverished, damaged, plain Jane. But our girl has a resilience and resourcefulness that leaps across time and fortifies the spirit.

That’s the very stuff of musical theatre of course, Jane continually delivering "I Want" songs, so it’s a surprise to learn that this is the first London production of Paul Gordon and John Caird’s show, its roots put down in Bill Clinton’s USA. It then went through various iterations, scaling up for Broadway and down for Cleveland, before fetching up on Southwark Playhouse’s Elephant stage, a house that works perfectly in sustaining its romance and its tension with a reduced cast.

Charlie Burn’s Jane is anything but plain, and Ashley Gilmour (both pictured above) goes full unkempt hair, black eyes and heroically unbuttoned shirt as Rochester, the troubled but sexy Lord of the Manor. That’s all a tad unfortunate coming so soon after Margot and Jacob’s Wuthering Heights (social hierarchy albeit gender reversed), but at least Burn looks within a decade of the right age for the role.

She is very good indeed, and she needs to be because Emily-Rose Samuel is fantastic as the tween Jane being bullied at school, and proves equally impressive doubling as Adèle, the ward for whom Jane is employed as a governess. It’s not often that you see a child-actor deliver both crucial emotional development and later find laugh after laugh in a wholly new role. Emily-Rose is a name to look out for.

Burn and Gilmour also need to be excellent, as the score is somewhat anodyne, lacking a really big 11 o’clock number with most songs sounding like Stephen Sondheim had set them aside for another day.

Now there’s plenty of tunes that might not make Sondheim’s cut but will work perfectly well in a musical and we do feel Ben Kubiak’s unseen seven piece orchestra driving the pace of the narrative, especially in a second half that moves more swiftly than the first. “Painting Her Portrait” is a standout. as Jane sits at her desk to paint herself ugly and Rochester’s intended, Blanche (Eve Shanu-Wilson) pretty. She’d need the skills of Picasso to pull off that trick convincingly, but never mind, she’s really only trying to fool herself to ameliorate her (presumed) inevitable rejection.

The ensemble cast double and triple parts, and sometimes sing as a chorus, articulating Jane’s thoughts as she is pulled this way and that by love, by duty, by her own insecurity. Hannah Lindsey impresses as Rochester’s mad wife, locked away on the upper floor, catching the pathos as well as the madness in a character that takes Miss Havisham up to 11.

The somewhat bare stage, supplemented by a few black and white projections, catches a gothic atmosphere, but our imagination has to do a lot of work on creating the cold rooms, the mysterious staircases and the noises off. So too the fire that is so intrinsic to the plot - a red glow and a smoke machine leaves us somewhat shortchanged.

But the heart of the show is the romance between Jane and Rochester and that depends on the burning hot chemistry between the leads. And there is more than enough of that to light up the two hours plus runtime. You’re never in any doubt that they’ll be together, so it’s all very warming watching it happen.

Ultimately, I suspect one’s judgement of the evening will depend on whether one has read the novel and is invested in its iconic status. I confess that I haven’t, but its story is strong (the book so often the weak point of a musical). It took me no time at all to be pulling for Jane and her emotional-intelligence stunted paramour, helped, perhaps, by the absence of any casting gimmicks and the old-school fidelity to the source material.

Treat it as an opera (it’s largely sung through) and grant to it the allowances we do for that oft-overwrought genre and the show works very well indeed, flaws and all. (Gary Naylor)

This musical adaptation of Jane Eyre (music and lyrics by Paul Gordon, book by John Caird) makes its long-awaited British premiere 30 years after it was first staged. Its Broadway production led to five Tony nominations in 2001. Since then it has been revised, with this chamber version now being produced at Southwark Playhouse Elephant. The show adds a spiritual and operatic layer to Charlotte Brontë’s Gothic romance. [...]

Using the cast as narrator/chorus throughout the proceedings adds a warmth that the story may otherwise lack, and the use of the floor space in this venue, with only projections to indicate a change of scene, allows effective blocking and interesting movement from the cast. Choreographer Georgina Lamb, lighting designer James Whiteside, and set/costume designer Morgan Large all add value to the atmosphere.

The story is much stronger in the second half, with Jane’s “Painting Her Portrait” adding drama. As the interval comes at a curious point in the narrative, there is a lot of ground to cover thereafter, including “My Hope of Heaven” (the proposal), what really is on the upper floor (a sweet moment between Jane and the mysterious woman lost in her insanity), and the ending, which “tempers judgement with mercy”.

With direction by Caird and Megan McGinnis, this production opens out the spiritual themes of the story from the start, opening with the mysterious connection between Rochester and Jane, miles apart. Themes of forgiveness, love, and loss thread through from the death of Jane’s parents through to the eventual reconciliation of the two lovers, joined forever by that string from his rib to hers.

Brontë purists will notice a few changes, but they are sympathetic to the original story, while a generous runtime allows scenes often excised in adaptations to be fully explored, such as the fortune-teller. This is not the only musical treatment of Jane Eyre – there have been operas, and even a ballet of the story – but it is perhaps the most sweeping, sentimental, and symbolic. Above the stage, quotations from the novel speak to Jane’s independence, faith, and state of mind, and tree branches suggest the oppressive and mysterious nature of Thornfield.

I might question the pacing of the first half, but the performances are uniformly excellent, especially the lead pair and young Samuel, who has a lot of emotionally charged moments as young Jane. This is a fine adaptation that is well worth your time. (Louise Penn)

Jane in adulthood is in the very capable hands of Charlie Burn. She has a very attractive singing voice in the lower part of its register, even if the tone is inclined to spread on higher notes.

Ashley Gilmour has terrific stage presence as Rochester and easily commands the stage; he also looks suitably dashing and is a strong singer, even if he is inclined to sound too American. Burn and Gilmour work seamlessly together and almost make one forget that the dialogue they are given seems nothing like as poetic as Brontë’s original!

The rest of the hard-working ensemble also impresses, especially Claire Greenway as Grace Poole and Jonathan Andrew Hume in the role of Mason, Rochester’s brother-in-law, demonstrating a very pleasing singing voice. Hannah Lindsey is powerful in the role of Bertha, but is given hardly anything to do; for example, we are barely allowed to see her when she sets Rochester’s bed aflame.

There are some strange directorial decisions. For example, although Southwark Elephant has a thrust stage, with the audience on three sides, it seems to have been directed for a proscenium-style auditorium. I was given a seat on one side for Act One but managed to move to one that was forward-facing for the second half and found that I could both see and hear much better! This comment certainly applies to Morgan Large’s set, obviously designed to a limited budget, which does make sense when seen from “straight on” rather than at an angle! It is a shame that grey is the prominent colour as it is inclined to make the whole show quite depressing, especially as nearly everyone wears black!

In addition, Brontë’s novel is set in Yorkshire, Lancashire and the Derbyshire Peak District where everyone, rich and poor, would have spoken using regional accents. In the production under review, everyone speaks in what is almost BBC ‘Received Pronunciation’, apart from one or two of the servants occasionally.

Some of the elements of the original plot are changed or glossed over but, on the whole, John Caird has done well to reduce the playing time to two and a quarter hours: it does certainly not overstay its welcome! Paul Gordon’s music is a cross between the style of Les Misérables and Sondheim. Much of it seems very slow and lacking in energy, but the whole ensemble gives it the best possible chance, as does the excellent seven-piece orchestra under Ben Kubiak. It is a shame that none of Gordon’s melodies even begin to stick in the memory. By the way, full marks for a change to the excellent sound design of Andrew Johnson who has ensured that the result of his efforts always sounds natural and never too loud: perfect – many thanks!

Although I am not sure that a musical about Jane Eyre was really needed, and there is already an opera by Michael Berkeley, I am pleased to have encountered this particular production. (John Groves)

Much like Emerald Fennell’s film of Wuthering Heights, this musical version of another Brontë sister’s literary masterpiece is lovely to look at. Designer Morgan Large’s monochrome palette fashions the women in black corseted dresses with attractive ruffles and delicate mesh detailing. Behind them on a screen, a mist appears to roll over sketches of moorland, graves and barren trees. It’s winningly atmospheric. But also like Fennell’s film, there’s too little beneath the frills in an adaptation (music and lyrics by Paul Gordon, book and additional lyrics by John Caird) that struggles to tap into the substance of Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel.

Though smart-mouthed and bolshie as a child (played commendably on press night by Emily-Rose Samuel), there’s scant sense of a strong-willed, independent thinker in Charlie Burn’s adult Jane, who under Caird and Megan McGinnis’s direction is as pure and polite as a fairytale princess. Nor is there anything dark or dangerous about Ashley Gilmour’s courteous, too-charming Rochester.

The songs dilute the story’s grit and hardship with syrupy sentiment. The overuse of twinkly wind chimes and pop-style scoop notes become musical tics, shifting the dial closer to Disney romance than Victorian gothic. Early numbers The Governess and Forgiveness are particularly cloying. But the better songs – including Jane’s Sweet Liberty and Rochester’s As Good As You – contain hints of Schönberg and Boublil’s Les Misérables (the original UK production of which Caird co-directed). And if the material itself is broadly one-note, this is still a fine-tuned production that runs like clockwork.

The cast of 11 – about half the size of the musical’s original Broadway run in 2000 – is packed with West End talent for this long-awaited London premiere. It’s just a shame they’re working with such flimsy material. (Holly O'Mahony)

La cara europea de las Jornadas del Cómic “Villa de Avilés” la completaron ayer, por un lado, la francoargentina Paulina Spucches y, por otro, el español Rubén Fdez. La primera es la autora de “Bronteäna” y también de “Vivian Maier. En la superficie de un espejo”: por un lado, la historia de la tercera de las Brontë -la primera fue Charlotte, después vino Emily y, al final, llegó Anne- [...]

Spucches, cuando tuvo que explicar por qué eligió a Maier y a la pequeña de las Brontë, responde que Maier “ahora sí que es reconocida”, pero que eso no sucedió siempre. “Ella trabajó, digamos, entre las sombras, sin mostrarlo a nadie”, señaló la francoargentina. Lo de Anne Brontë, lo admitió la creadora, viene de un empeño por promover “una visibilización” de una escritora envuelta en los siglos victorianos. “Vi a Maier en un mundo blanco y negro, Anne Brontë en algo muy victoriano, muy cerrado, con poca emoción, y me gusta la idea de poner movimientos y colores a esas vidas: tener un diálogo a través de la historia con esos personajes y me emociona mucho poder compartirlo con los lectores para quizás despertar un deseo en ellos y ellas de aprender más sobre esas historias”. [...]

Spucches, cuando tuvo que explicar por qué eligió a Maier y a la pequeña de las Brontë, responde que Maier “ahora sí que es reconocida”, pero que eso no sucedió siempre. “Ella trabajó, digamos, entre las sombras, sin mostrarlo a nadie”, señaló la francoargentina. Lo de Anne Brontë, lo admitió la creadora, viene de un empeño por promover “una visibilización” de una escritora envuelta en los siglos victorianos. “Vi a Maier en un mundo blanco y negro, Anne Brontë en algo muy victoriano, muy cerrado, con poca emoción, y me gusta la idea de poner movimientos y colores a esas vidas: tener un diálogo a través de la historia con esos personajes y me emociona mucho poder compartirlo con los lectores para quizás despertar un deseo en ellos y ellas de aprender más sobre esas historias”. (Saúl Fernández) (Translation)

   

16831 published posts

Twenty-one years ago today, on September 10, 2005, BrontëBlog published its first post. Two decades on, it's still going — a quiet, steady record of Brontë news, scholarship, and the occasional strange pop-culture cameo, kept up post by post rather than with any fanfare.

None of it repeats itself, which is probably why the blog hasn't run out of things to say. Here's to another year of paying attention to it.

   

 A new Jane Eyre adaptation is being performed in Houston:

Zoom Shakespeare Productions presents

Thornfield: A Story of Jane Eyre

A World-Premiere Adaptation of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.

Written by Tanya Terry; 

Directed by Andrew Roblyer

September 4 - 13, 2026

Matchbox 1, Midtown Arts & Theater Center, 3400 Main Street, Houston, TX 77002

You know the story, but you haven’t felt it like this. Step into the haunting, deeply intimate world of Thornfield Hall. Through stunning projections and evocative movement, this bold adaptation explores Charlotte Brontë’s timeless romance through the lens of Jane’s own artistic spirit—the very force that sustains her. Written by Tanya Terry and directed by Andrew Roblyer, this world-premiere production charts the quiet fire of a woman claiming her autonomy and the magnetic bond she shares with Edward Rochester. Artistic Director Rebecca Bernstein stars in a spellbinding experience.