Full casting and creative team have been announced for Wuthering Heights the brand-new adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel, opening at Royal & Derngate, Northampton from 24 April – 6 May, with a national press night on Friday 28 April ahead of a UK tour, playing Oxford, London, Coventry and Newcastle.
Channelling Emily Brontë’s piercing wit and fierce emotion, Inspector Sands presents a retelling of this classic story of obsessive love and revenge in their boldly humorous and humane style. Their thrilling new version draws out themes of intergenerational trauma, and the dangerous impact of social exclusion…confronting us all with urgent questions for our own times.
Told through the eyes and memories of housekeeper Nelly, alone in her kitchen during a long night of the soul, haunted by the story.
Leander Deeny (he/him) (The Wonderful World of Dissocia – Stratford East, The Tempest – Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre York, Robin Hood – The Watermill) will play ‘Earnshaw/Edgar/Linton’, John Askew (he/him) (Road – Oldham Coliseum, Rita, Sue and Bob Too – Out of Joint / UK tour, Wuthering Heights – Theatre Royal Windsor) will play ‘Hindley / Hareton’, Giulia Innocenti (she/her), co-founder and co-Artistic Director of Inspector Sands, (The Elephantom – NT, Cinderella – Oxford Playhouse, Cymbeline – Kneehigh) will play ‘Nelly’, artist, writer and performer Lua Bairstow (they/she) (The Sound Grief Project – Bradford Producing Hub, Transform, Leeds Playhouse, Maybe I Should Freeze My Eggs, Digs, Neuroqueer – Theatre with Legs, Pleasance Courtyard, Camden People’s Theatre) will play ‘Catherine / Catherine’s ghost’, Ike Bennett (he/him) (Road – Northern Stage) will play ‘Heathcliff’, and Nicole Sawyerr (she/her) (Road – Northern Stage, Don Quixote – Perth Theatre, Beneath the City – Birmingham Rep) will play ‘Isabella/Frances/Young Cathy’.
This new Inspector Sands’ adaptation has been conceived and developed by founding members Lucinka Eisler and Ben Lewis with the script written by Ben Lewis and the production directed by Lucinka Eisler (Inspector Sands’ Co-Artistic Director), the work has been a live collaboration from the outset. Designer Jamie Vartan (Evening Standard Award nominee for Misterman at the NT) will be bringing the moors and manors to life with integral sound design by Elena Peña (Misty, Bush and West End) and Dan Balfour (Operation Mincemeat, Southwark Playhouse), lighting design by Ben Ormerod. Chris Yarnell is Associate Director, Johanna Martensson is Costume Designer, Voice & Accent Coach is Gurkiran Kaur and Tanuja Amarasuriya has been a Consulting Artist on the production. Helen Mugridge is Production Manager, and the stage management team are Roisin Symes (CSM) and Daniel Roach-Williams (ASM). Intimacy on Set are supporting the production: the intimacy coordinator is Rose Ryan, with Veniece Forde as assistant intimacy coordinator and Ita O’Brien as Intimacy on set (director). Shally Gadhoke is the production’s Wellbeing Practitioner.
Lucinka Eisler said, “The show is ostensibly set in the 1750s of the story, but it is its contemporary resonances we are most drawn to, so the visual world, script and physical language all have a playful nod to a contemporary perspective on this classic. Brontë’s novel illustrates the way violence, beliefs and family dynamics are passed down from generation to generation. In turn we look at the way the story we have inherited from Brontë speaks to the huge risks of ignoring history.
We’re interested in treading the line between darkness and comedy where the most human of experiences seem to lie.
Elena is excited to be collaborating with co-sound designer, Dan Balfour and their highly-charged sound design is central to the show’s language, with a rich score composed of contemporary music and original soundscapes – it’s a character in its own right! The experience will be highly sensory, with the violence in the novel transposed through live foley sound (played out on stage as part of the action) and the characters’ internal worlds spilling out into the vast weatherscapes of the Yorkshire moors.”
