"Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte

Nottingham Theatre Royal

The classic Emily Bronte novel has been adapted and directed by Emma Rice, and is a co-production with the National Theatre, Bristol Old Vic and York Theatre Royal.

Rescued from the Liverpool docks as a child, Heathcliff is adopted by the Earnshaws and taken to live at Wuthering Heights. He finds a kindred spirit in Catherine Earnshaw and a fierce love ignites. When forced apart, a brutal chain of events is unleashed.

The production itself is, for my liking, just a little too long. The first act is ninety minutes long! Saying that, the novel itself does not leave much to edit out, so you can say it is quite comprehensive as a production. The second part is more fast moving and ties up several loose ends. It's so fast moving that even the cast ask what is happening!!

The fourth wall is constantly broken and at times seems almost panto-esque.

There is puppetry used in this production, especially to show the young Catherine and Heathcliff, a strange vicious dog which is depicted as an animal skull on a stick, and a flock of leaf-flapping books on sticks to represent a flock of birds! The Puppetry Director is John Leader.

The moor is a living thing, recreated by actors. Jordan Laviniere plays the part of The Yorkshire Moor/narrator, a narrating moor, but with several other actors also playing the moor at the same time, well the Yorkshire Moors are quite vast!

The cast is led by Liam Tamne (Heathcliff), who is as dark and brooding as any Heathcliffe - unless you've seen Cliff Richard play the part - and Lucy McCormick (Cathy) who does a lot of screaming and shouting and running around. Heathcliff also likes to slap the female characters around a bit and bullies his effeminate son, Little Linton into marriage, where he then sees Heathcliff as a role model to how you treat women.

Katy Owen is, for me the star of this production as Isabella, as well as Little LInton, after Isabella passes away. Brilliant comedy roles.

Talking of passing away, there's an awful lot of that happening and we are constantly reminded of the ones that have gone by their names chalked up on a chalk board, lest we forget!

The music on the production is performed by Sid Goldsmith, Nadine Lee, who is also the Musical Director, and Renell Shaw in various musical genres, but this is not a musical, more like a play with music added, quite a bit of music added. There was a grungy style song, with a few expletives, conducted in full on concert mode complete with mic drop, which really just confused me as the rest of the score form the band was lovely atmospheric folky type music.

Emma Rice has injected quite a bit of comedy which ranges from slapstick to one-liners like the one Isabella relates in her three facts about her, intended to entice Heathcliff in her wooing of him “Sometimes I like to slide down the banister because it tickles my tuppence". I don't seem to remember Emily Bronte penning that line in the novel!

The set and costume design is by Vicki Mortimer. The set often reminded me of a cross between a Tim Burton set mixed with The Comic Strip and League Of Gentleman. All very weird but fantastically fun. The costumes were equally wonderful and of the period.

The sound and video design is by Simon Baker. The Video Design was basically a large screen at the back with scenic scenes and either day or night depictions, oh and flocks of birds whenever someone died. It got to the stage that I didn't even notice what was happening as I was concentrating on trying to follow the characters and the story.

The Sound Design was maybe just a bit louder than it needed to be and had the tendency to slightly drown some of the song lyrics and, with Heathcliff having some kind of Jamaican,West Indian accent, some of his script was also lost, swamped by the volume of the music.

Lighting design is by Jai Morjaria and this really brought the thunderstorms and rain and windiness to life.

The movement and choreography is by Etta Murfitt. There are some lovely slow-motion sections as well as some interesting choreographed dance pieces.

This adaptation is a real marmite moment - a moment lasting almost three hours long - with some people loving the new, modern way of presenting the dark and brooding Bronte classic. Others will hate it. I licked the marmite toastie and can't quite make up my mind whether I like the taste or not, but I wouldn't really like to take a second lick just in case I found out that it wasn't really for me.

Now, where did I put that Kate Bush album?

"Wuthering Heights" will be at the Nottingham Theatre Royal until Saturday 30 April.