Rehearsals began this week for an energetic National Theatre adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece, Jane Eyre, which hits York in the spring.
Manchester actor Nadia Clifford takes the central role of Jane Eyre with Tim Delap as Rochester.
This version was originally presented in two parts at Bristol Old Vic. Later it was re-imagined as a single performance, playing to sold out houses at the National Theatres’s Lyttelton Theatre in London.
A clarion call
Director Sally Cookson first read the novel in her early twenties and sees it as “a clarion cry for equal opportunities for women, not a story about a passive female who will do anything for her hunky boss”.
She added:
She was exactly the sort of person I wanted to be.
Still gripping
This is the 170th anniversary of the publication of Jane Eyre.
Brontë’s story remains as gripping as ever. From her beginnings as a destitute orphan, Jane Eyre’s spirited heroine faces life’s obstacles head-on, surviving poverty, injustice and the discovery of bitter betrayal before taking the ultimate decision to follow her heart.
The National Theatre/ Bristol Old Vic co-production begins its tour in Salford in April before coming to the Grand Opera House for a week in May.