'Jane Eyre' at Bristol Old Vic

Emerging from Bristol Old Vic after seven hours inside the theatre I felt a little like a hibernating creature blinking wildly in the new daylight. The famous theatre is staging a bravely long two-part version of Charlotte Bronte’s famous Jane Eyre, although there’s no rule that says you have to see both parts in the same day!

Directed by Sally Cookson, this new version of Jane Eyre is an impressive one. With a multi-purpose, split-level stage (which reminded me of an adventure playground), the set is easily adaptable for Jane’s many life stages, and with four-and-a-half hours at her disposal, Cookson has plenty of time to take us on a tour of Jane’s tumultuous experiences. Although I was desperately wishing that the characters would stop running up and down ladders as it was becoming very distracting and kept making me think they were in a giant game of Snakes and Ladders.

As Jane, Madeleine Worrall is never off stage, which is an amazing feat of endurance. More so for the fact that the quality of her performance never slips, and it seems impossible to imagine a more perfect actor for this role. Having previously seen Madeline as Wendy in Peter Pan (another Cookson production for Bristol Old Vic), to see her as Jane Eyre felt like a natural evolution.

Is it safe to assume you know the story of Jane Eyre? If you don’t, shame on you and I urge you to read the novel immediately. It’s one of my favourites and stands up well to multiple re-readings. But there is always a risk of potential disappointment when seeing one of your favourite novels reworked into another format. However, Cookson’s version does not disappoint. She has said that she wanted to divide the play into two parts to allow space for the story to breathe and grow, and to show how the character of Jane has evolved due to the hardships, cruelty and misery she has endured.

There are moments of light relief to temper the relentless gloom in her life, though. The transitional coach scenes are great fun, and Craig Edwards as Rochester’s dog Pilot is an absolute delight.

An absolute highlight of the production is Benji Bower’s music throughout, which at times bordered on the Lynchian. Bower’s band achieve the combined tasks of blending into the middle of the set, as well as joining in with the ensemble cast at times. And the music itself was sublime, especially when sung.

But the outstanding highlight of the production was Melanie Marshall’s Bertha Mason, the mad woman in the attic. Marshall has the most mesmerising voice, and added a layer of errie threat to the entire production. Although as lovely as her renditions of Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy and Noel Coward’s Mad About The Boy were, I did feel that such contemporary songs didn’t necessarily fit in this period piece. Although Marshall’s performance of both was thoroughly absorbing.

I felt part one of Jane Eyre was much stronger than the second, although that may well have been because I was struggling with endurance by the second part! It’s ambitious to produce such a long adaptation of the book, but ultimately Cookson pulls it off - especially with the wonderful addition of Bower’s music.

For more information and to buy tickets, please click here. My recommendation is that you spread the joy and see the two parts on different days. 

‘Talon’ at Bristol Old Vic

Photo: Paul Blakemore

One for sorrow, two for joy…

Never has the magpie rhyme seemed more eerie than in the Bristol Old Vic Young Company’s production of the new gothic thriller Talon.

Written by Theo Fraser Steele, Talon follows newlywed couple Mary (Amy Hunter) and James (Samuel Bailey) whose happy marriage starts to feel the strain when Mary fails to fall pregnant after the first few years. The scenes showing the passing of time and attempts to conceive are perfectly directed in a simple but effective dance using a very versatile white sheet.

When James has a regrettable fling with a maid, which produces the much-longed for child, in a fit of rage he puts the infant boy in a wicker basket, and pushes it away down the river… thinking the boy will quietly die, but not realising he will be rescued and raised by a tiding of magpies.

Mary knows nothing about this, but her desperation for a child is driving her mad. Ambitious and unscrupulous Dr Foster (Joseph Langdon) becomes a frequent visitor to the home, prescribing laudanum to both James and Mary in a bid to help their insomnia and depression. But his time with the couple instead leads to him unravelling a terrible secret…

Photo: Paul Blakemore

Directed by Miranda Cromwell, Talon is a wonderfully chilling gothic tale that is compelling from start to finish, with a constantly building air of menace. The magpie chorus that surrounds the stage, and frequently dominates the action, is a wonderful device, and one that produces fantastic sound effects and some truly haunting singing. There is also a nice hint of old-fashioned BBC radio plays, with two cluttered tables at each side of the stage, covered with microphones and props, where various cast members retreat to provide sound effects, which works very well.

Between the German Expressionist lighting, the fantastic creation of imposing shadows, and the framing of all of the action with literal, well, frames, Talon is a cracking example of good theatrical storytelling. The cast are all very strong, and the inclusion of a child actor for the boy (instead of an adult pretending to be a boy) is a brave move that pays off.

Talon is performed at Bristol Old Vic’s Studio until 11 January. Click here for more information. 

How To Be A Heroine

All books should be this much fun to read. In How To Be A Heroine, playwright Samantha Ellis revisits all of her favourite novels to answer the pressing question of who really was the best heroine – Jane Eyre or Catherine Earnshaw?

Anyone who’s spent their formative years with their faces buried in the pages of novels like Gone With The Wind, Anne of Green Gables, Pride and Prejudice and Lace will simply love How To Be A Heroine… which has even earned its own online quiz (Samantha and I are both Petrova Fossil from Ballet Shoes, by the way).

Part memoir of growing up in London with Iraqui-Jewish refugee parents, and part celebration of many of the most wonderful literary characters ever, How To Be A Heroine is a pure joy to read. It’s also made me compile a long list of novels I’ve yet to read (Riders, Franny and Zooey, Twilight…) that I can’t wait to get stuck into.

The idea of using well-loved novels to shape an autobiography is a lovely idea and works so effectively. Samantha clearly knows her subjects inside out and loves the characters dearly… those who propped her up during different times of her life and helped her sort out various dilemmas – surely, something all bookworms can identify with (I’m quite sure I’d be nowhere if I hadn’t had Judy Blume at my teenage elbow).

You’ll race through How To Be A Heroine as quickly as you raced through Valley Of The Dolls – and that’s no bad thing, simply a testament to how enjoyable and warm a book Samantha Ellis has written.

The Mystery of Princess Louise

Being one of Queen Victoria’s children can’t have been a pleasant experience. The starchy monarch was famous for her dislike of children, and wanted them to only uphold the strict values that came to typify the Victorian era. But her rebellious daughter Princess Louise somehow managed to escape that mould.

Princess Louise, born in 1848, was the sixth child and fourth daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Following a particularly agonising birth, Queen Victoria had already developed a dislike for her ‘difficult’ daughter… and the feeling grew to be fairly mutual. However, with dignity and grace Princess Louise managed to develop into the bohemian princess with a mind of her own: she was a talented sculptor and artist, a passionate woman who loved to travel all over the world, and who was fiercely devoted to supporting the emancipation of women in society.

Scandal was never too far from Princess Louise. And Lucinda Hawksley’s excellent and gripping new biography of the princess (The Mystery of Princess Louise) suggests that Louise gave birth to an illegitimate son as a teenager, and he was promptly adopted by a family known to the royals. It also suggests Princess Louise’s loveless marriage to the Marquess of Lorne was doomed to fail from the off, not least due to his homosexuality - which grew so frustrating for her that she had the windows of Kensington Palace bricked up to keep him from creeping off for assignations. Add in the confusing details surrounding the untimely death of Princess Louise’s long-term lover Joseph Boehm, and in The Mystery of Princess Louise you have a deeply exciting book – far more engaging than any novel I’ve read recently.

Lucinda leaves no stone unturned in her quest to find out every last scrap of information about the bohemian princess, rigorously travelling from England to Scotland to Canada and beyond to search archives and interview anyone who might shed some light on Queen Victoria’s rebellious daughter. But in most instances Lucinda is met with closed doors… as she discovered the royal team had locked down every last shred of information in all the archives relating to Princess Louise and everybody who knew her. It’s testament to Lucinda’s research skills that she has still produced such a richly detailed and informative biography, despite the inevitable frustrations. What were the royal family so desperate to hide about this princess, who died in 1939 and is sadly barely remembered by most people today?

This secrecy makes it easy to believe Lucinda’s thoughtfully posed assertions about Louise’s big secrets… as well as to see past the myth that Queen Victoria was a respected monarch. Looking back on a time we don’t have any memory of, it’s easy to believe the picture painted for us that Queen Victoria was adored by her citizens, but The Mystery of Princess Louise proves that was far from the case. Princess Louise comes across as a figure as adored by the public as Princess Diana was more recently.