Brutal, passionate and delightfully dark

Wuthering Heights

Dilys Guite Players

Sheffield Lantern Theatre

EVERY reader of Emily Bronte’s classic brooding love story has their own images of its brutal wind-swept moor, pitch-dark nights, ghosts and the fiery passion between Cathy and Heathcliff.

As the programme notes say, you can’t help but picture the accursed, self-absorbed lovers locked in an embrace — with the Kate Bush song playing in the background.

But this delightfully dark production shows we shouldn’t fall for stereotypes. And there’s far more going on than you think.

The essence of the novel is the way the brutality of the landscape shapes the characters’ lives and from the start Charles Vance’s oft-used adaptation evokes storms and isolation as gentleman and new tenant Lockwood (played with charming naivety by Christopher Webb) sets the scene.

Brontë wrote her book at a time of great change in British society — not long after the Chartists’ general strike of 1842 in the great uprising for democracy. The characters, though not very nice, are people we can identify with rather than the period mannequins of many costume dramas, as they are forced to choose between desire and social standing, love and money, passion and economic wellbeing.

In a sign of such changing times, Catherine Earnshaw must choose between two men — Heathcliff, the wild-eyed gypsy, who captures her soul, and Edgar, who represents the safe, certain path of education, class position and property.

Catherine’s reasons for choosing the wealthy Edgar are totally calculating, if ultimately mistaken.

Director Nick Tait captures all the melodrama and realism in a fast-paced performance, which brilliantly utilises the backstage talents of technicals Harry Rowbotham and Casey Windle, set designer Charlotte Thornton, landscape design and painter Christopher Halliwell and set builders Phil Claxton and Karl Worthington, under the watchful eye of stage manager Serena Valentine.

So many scene changes on a small stage create a real challenge and Vance’'s reworking occasionally makes the narration by Lockwood and servant Nelly Dean a bit clunky.

Joshua Smith is a solid Heathcliff, most compellingly coming to life as his younger self, while Sarah Spencer, as Catherine, convincingly portrays her many sides, from free spirit and tantrums to fiery young woman standing up for herself in a man’s world before her descent into ill health.

Cein Edwards, as the likeable, outspoken Nelly Dean, winningly holds it all together with style — and most of the laughs.

Dennis John conveys a real threatening presence, even if a little one-dimensional, as Hindley, Will Couchman is suitably two-faced as gentrified Edgar Linton,

Natalie Lee makes a fine foil for Catherine as Isabella, while Adam Foley is every inch the part of Hareton, who eventually finds love with young Cathy, as a sparkly Lara Bundock is transformed from the unhappy prisoner of Wuthering Heights.

It may not quite hit the heights of some of the company’s other recent productions, but a hard-working cast makes it an enjoyable night in the theatre.