With a nod to Chekhov, Blake Morrison’s wonderful play evokes the bleak, brooding atmosphere of the world of the Bronte sisters.
It is 1848 and in a gloomy parsonage high in the Yorkshire moors we find Charlotte, Emily and Anne, pioneering, though cautious, literary spirits, refusing to be stifled by a society that consigned women to the embroidery table.
Their lives seem to be dominated by their kindly but needy clergyman father and regular visits from his lovelorn idealistic curate and the insufferably self-centred local schoolteacher.
But there are also two glowering drunks who brings a sense of unease to the household.
One is their profligate brother Branwell - once a talented painter, poet and scholar but now squandering the family’s savings along with his potential.
The other, the local doctor whose unrequited love for Anne has long found him viewing life through the bottom of a whisky bottle.
With the wind howling around the house and the stonemason’s chisel chipping away at yet another grave, they somehow manage to write Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
With some fine acting - particularly from Catherine Kinsella, Sophia Di Martino and Rebecca Hutchinson as Charlotte, Anne and Emily respectively, this Northern Broadside Production directed by Barrie Rutter is a fine piece of theatre.
It runs at Lighthouse until Saturday (October 15).
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