Southwark Playhouse has posted a trailer for its production of Jane Eyre, offering a first glimpse of the musical currently running at Southwark Playhouse Elephant. The clip previews the atmosphere of the staging, which brings Charlotte Brontë's novel to the stage through what the theatre describes as a lush and sweeping score. [...]

The staging marks the UK premiere of the musical, running at Southwark Playhouse Elephant through 24 October. The trailer was shot by videographer Adam Nightingale. (Michael Major)

 

Ce livre d'une journaliste et chroniqueuse déjà connue du prix Goncourt se dessine comme un des favoris du concours. [...]

Il s'appelle Je, mais ce n'est pas une autobiographie. Même si on ne connait pas la vie personnelle de l'autrice, il ne peut pas s'agir de cela car le roman se passe en 1831. On lit : "Île de la Jamaïque, 1831. Antoinette Cosway, créole de bonne famille, s'éprend d'Edward Rochester, un Anglais aussi impénétrable que fascinant. Mais à la séduction enflammée succèdent rapidement des scènes vénéneuses, où les baisers sont des blessures, où toute une société livre la jeune femme à son bourreau.

Des années plus tard, Antoinette tente de conquérir sa propre histoire. "JE" se situe à mi-chemin entre roman victorien et thriller intimiste contemporain. Lilia Hassaine s'est inspirée du personnage de la première femme de Rochester dans Jane Eyre, le roman culte de Charlotte Brontë. Elle a choisi de lui donner une voix, un corps, une destinée." [...]

Avec déjà une sélection par le passé, Lilia Hassaine devient déjà une habituée de ce concours. Cela pourrait l'avantager. Avec toutes les autres distinctions que le livre a déjà, il a vraiment ses chances. Enfin, la référence à un classique de la littérature peut aussi l'avantager. Outre cela, il n'est pas pour autant premier des ventes. Pour l'instant, C'était ça ou mourir D'Orélien Thélyson est numéro un des ventes, considéré comme le phénomène littéraire de l'année, il s'apparente comme le favori qui au final perd. Alors que "Je" est dixième du classement Datalib.

En tout cas, les lecteurs semblent adorer. Babelio lui donne la belle note de 4,25/5. On peut lire entre autres : Livre de la rentrée littéraire 2026 et ce fut un coup de cœur ! Un livre magnifique, une plume efficace, un récit captivant. (…) Le roman met en lumière une autre vision de cette femme, victime de son temps, du patriarcat, de son époux, et des machinations l'ayant conduite à être enfermée et considérée comme "folle". Je ne pouvais pas lâcher ce livre." (Paul Mocka) (Translation)

   

With a recently released trailer for Wuthering Heights: House of the Damned, director Becca Hirani (the Elevator) posits a different spin on the story, one that is leaning into gothic horror in three key ways, setting it on track to embrace the spirit of the novel, rather than distort it. 

3. Cathy’s Ghost Has Agency in This Version of Wuthering Heights

When Mr. Lockwood, a new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, arrives at Wuthering Heights, he soon finds etchings under a windowsill. The etchings spell out the name Catherine Earnshaw and then Catherine Linton. While investigating, Mr. Lockwood comes face to face with a ghost who breaks through the window pane, slamming him against the wall by gripping his throat. 

The ghost of Cathy is absent from Fennell’s adaptation along with many that came before it, but is present in the trailer for Wuthering Heights: House of the Damned. The element is distinctively horror, especially in the way Hirani uses it. Here, the ghost is not passive or something belonging in the house, but rather a spirit acting against Mr. Lockwood. 

It amps up the danger Mr. Lockwood is in, a danger that was previously relegated to the characters still alive. Audiences know to be wary of Mr. Heathcliff, but it is an adaptational twist to give Cathy back this capacity for violence from beyond the grave. 

In the novel, Brontë leaves Cathy’s ghost ambiguous. The presence is felt through knocking and a repeated cry heard through the window, along with rumors spread about town, but it isn’t something that’s able to harm Mr. Lockwood in the way Hirani’s does. 

2. Violence that Can’t be Romanticized in House of the Damned

Hirani’s Wuthering Heights from the get go is off to a better start with the inclusion of Cathy’s brother Hindley. Fennell’s adaptation erased the character completely, choosing to give his abusive traits to Cathy’s father. But with Hindley in the narrative — as long as he isn’t suddenly the perfect brother — the violence in the film is no longer solely romantic. The visual symbols of violence in Hirani’s Wuthering Heights: House of the Damned are not a noose or handcuffs trying to erotic but rather smashed glass, a sharp knife, and bloody eyes. 

The romance of Cathy and Heathcliff is present but it is framed completely differently. No longer the greatest love story ever told, it is now “the most harrowing romance of all time”. The film’s synopsis paints Heathcliff as obsessed in the wake of Cathy’s death and from her influence “turning murderous on all who dwell there.” It’s a shift from Heathcliff’s revenge plot in the book, inflicted there on the resulting children of the Earnshaw and Linton families. Instead, it is more immediate. Heathcliff, with the aid of Cathy’s ghost, is likely going after those who currently dwell in the house rather than a future generation.

1.  Wuthering Heights as Haunted House Narrative

At its core, Wuthering Heights is a story of a haunted house, and Hirani’s visuals reflect this. The house looks unassuming from the outside, but inside, every room is cast in shadow. The characters have to resort to candlelight and even then, much is still obscured from view. 

The frame narrator Mr. Lockwood isn’t supposed to be there. He’s renting out the sister property Thrushcross Grange, depicted as lighter and a pleasant place to live, but his own niceties have brought him to Wuthering Heights, wanting to know his neighbors. It is Mr. Lockwood then who should be most primed to escape. Yet, as the trailer shows him painfully looking in the mirror as his reflection is replaced with Cathy’s, not even him can do that. He is stuck at Wuthering Heights, much like the Earnshaws. 

With the emphasis placed on Cathy’s ghost, it raises the question if Wuthering Heights will be depicted as haunted prior to Cathy’s death. As mentioned before, the exterior shot of the estate looks rather normal. There are no overgrown branches or broken windows, but rather it is the inside and Cathy’s influence there that places it as haunted. The violence may have existed before her death but the physical markers don’t appear until after it. (Archie Wagner)

“Dying for You,” from Charli’s Wuthering Heights soundtrack released earlier this year, was a much-appreciated “Oh right, this song” selection from a set that already feels historically underappreciated. (Andrew Unterberger)

   

Wuthering Heights

Idilio

André Aciman

Translated by Julia Osuna Aguilar

Ediciones Alfaguara

September 2026

En estas cuatro novelas cortas, André Aciman explora las incertidumbres, los deseos y los equívocos del amor. En «El caballero del Perú», unos amigos conocen en un hotel de la costa amalfitana a un misterioso huésped cuya presencia lo cambia todo. «Habitación frente al mar» narra el diálogo entre dos desconocidos que se encuentran en un juicio y comienzan una relación ambigua. «Mariana» reimagina un célebre relato del siglo XVII sobre la pasión entre una monja y un aristócrata inconstante. En «Polizones», un correo inesperado revela a Julian la existencia de una vida y un amor secretos que ignoraba por completo.

Sutil, melancólico y profundamente conmovedor, Idilio ilumina ese espacio incierto donde conviven el amor, el recuerdo y la esperanza. Una celebración de los encuentros que nos transforman y de las emociones que persisten mucho después de que todo haya terminado.