Jane Eyre: A Musical review – more Disney romance than Victorian gothic

Southwark Playhouse Elephant, London This production has a talented cast and looks the part, but the characterisation is thin and the songs are often cloying Much like Emerald Fennell’s film of Wuthering Heights, this musical version of another Brontë sister’s literary masterpiece is lovely to look at.

Designer Morgan Large’s monochrome palette fashions the women in black corseted dresses with attractive ruffles and delicate mesh detailing.

Behind them on a screen, a mist appears to roll over sketches of moorland, graves and barren trees. It’s winningly atmospheric.

But also like Fennell’s film, there’s too little beneath the frills in an adaptation (music and lyrics by Paul Gordon, book and additional lyrics by John Caird) that struggles to tap into the substance of Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel.

Though smart-mouthed and bolshie as a child (played commendably on press night by Emily-Rose Samuel), there’s scant sense of a strong-willed, independent thinker in Charlie Burn’s adult Jane, who under Caird and Megan McGinnis’s direction is as pure and polite as a fairytale princess.

Nor is there anything dark or dangerous about Ashley Gilmour’s courteous, too-charming Rochester. At Southwark Playhouse Elephant, London, until 24 October Continue reading...