Wuthering Heights – Royal and Derngate, Northampton

Writer: Ben Lewis, after Emily Brontë

Adaptation conceived and developed by Lucinka Eisler and Ben Lewis

Director: Lucinka Eisler

One thing that you can expect from this production of Wuthering Heights – it will most likely be nothing like you expect.

Although the production created by Inspector Sands and conceived and developed by Lucinka Eisler and Ben Lewis is ostensibly set in the 1750s of the original story, it has a decidedly modern twist and contains ideas which Emily Brontë would find distinctly alien. Costumes are sometimes modern, other times period and the cast change characters by throwing on a different dress or jacket. Nothing particularly unusual in any of that, you may think, but this is not just a contemporary version of a classic novel. It’s an Inspector Sands version of a classic novel, and things are seldom what they seem – and although the script by Ben Lewis tells a story that is clearly recognisable as Wuthering Heights, it’s a long way from a mere adaptation of the novel. It’s a piece of theatre in its own right, original yet following a familiar tale.

It challenges your expectations from the start. Our narrator Nelly is preparing vegetables on the table with an otherwise empty stage. An echoey disembodied voice challenges her to justify why she claims that Heathcliff is a monster. She starts to tell us the story, but the voice is not content, correcting her timeline and insisting that she must start at the beginning and omit nothing. While it may take different guises at different times the voice becomes a constant presence, cajoling or demanding whenever she strays from the correct narrative. Dialogue jumps abruptly from 1750s-style to modern idioms, contemporary music suddenly arrives and cast members sing along and dance to it – then as quickly as it arrived it’s gone and we’re back in the 18^th century. A character is dressed in period costume surrounded by beer cans. It’s all quite – intentionally – unsettling.

With a split level set comprising nothing more than a large table and some chairs, the cast and technical teams are inevitably going to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting here, and they all rise to the occasion admirably – and while the content may not be to your taste, you can’t fault the performances of it. Inspector Sands co-Artistic Director Guilia Innocenti carries the plot forward nicely as Nelly, filling in details and backstory where necessary alongside being one of the characters in the action. Leeander Deeney shows good flexibility as Earnshaw, Edgar and Linton with John Askew giving a good performance as an initially arrogant and latterly drunken recluse Hindley alongside a taciturn Hareton.

Lua Bairstow is a flirtatious Catherine, married yet still disastrously drawn to Ike Bennett’s Heathcliff – a good performance here from Bennett, with his transition from a frightened slave who speaks no English into the suave, manipulative and violent man he becomes. Threatening to steal the show is Nicole Sawyerr with splendidly amusing depictions of first Isabella, then briefly Frances before her wonderful Young Cathy, moving from insistent and playful teenager to fearful yet confident young woman.

The sound is integral to the production and Elena Peña and Dan Balfour have created something which truly enhances the action – whether it’s eerie voices, the wind and storm from the moors or music it’s constantly there and plays its part in the experience, all complemented by Ben Ormerod’s often gloomy and foreboding lighting.

It’s not a production which will be to everyone’s taste, and if you’re expecting to see Wuthering Heights played in a traditional manner you are going to be very disappointed. What you will get is something that challenges your perceptions. It’s not just a play, it’s a piece of theatre, of performance art, and something that will generate different responses in every member of the audience.

Runs until: 6 May 2023 then on tour