Wuthering Heights, National Theatre review ★★★★★

Emma Rice presents a Brechtian take on Emily Brontë’s gothic novel Wuthering Heights, complete with narration, a personified moor and a singing chorus. But while the harsh landscape and sheer unhappiness of the story's doomed characters are felt keenly, the overly self-aware nature of the production distances the audience from its heartache and tragedy.

This marks the first time Rice’s Wise Children has adapted a story channelling more dark than light. The Bristol-based company’s previous productions, including Bagdad Cafe and the eponymous Wise Children, have been built on a crowd-pleasing formula of song-fuelled razzmatazz and an uplifting celebration of togetherness.


TJ Holmes (Robert), Tama Phethean (Hindley Earnshaw_Hareton Earnshaw), Witney White (Frances Earnshaw_Young Cathy) Ash Hunter (Heathcliff) and Jordan Laviniere (John). Photo: Steve Tanner

Wuthering Heights is in no short supply of songs, but the company's signature sparkle has been replaced by an appropriately moody and shifting sky – the centrepiece of the set – conjured via a back-wall projection by designers Vicki Mortimer (The Normal Heart, Follies) and Simon Baker (Romantics Anonymous). Beyond this, Mortimer’s set design is stripped back and simple: agile props – doors, windows and chairs – are wheeled on and off to move the action between the rugged moorland and the homes of the Earnshaws and Lintons, or to confine the story’s ill-fated women.

While the Earnshaws’ unhappiness is palpable, Rice skims over the more compelling early years of Cathy and Heathcliff's relationship, seemingly to languish in the more hopeful company of the younger generation. Sure, we witness the cycle of hatred come full circle, but too few interactions between the story’s star-crossed, would-be lovers leave us struggling to grasp their pain.

Sam Archer (Edgar Linton), Ash Hunter (Heathcliff) and Lucy McCormick (Cathy). Photo: Steve Tanner

Still, Lucy McCormick as Cathy and Ash Hunter as Heathcliff are engrossing leads who embody the essence of their characters. McCormick’s wild-eyed gaze and haunting screams juxtapose with Hunter’s demure rage. The pair’s otherworldly bond is shown, rather than spoken, with the two affectionately squaring up to one another as if drawn together magnetically.

Heathcliff’s racial identity is fittingly explored. The orphan found in the Liverpool docks wishes out loud for fairer skin and straight hair, hinting it’s his darker colouring as well as his parentage that sets him apart from the Earnshaw children.

Ash Hunter (Heathcliff) and Katy Owen (Isabella Linton_Linton Heathcliff). Photo: Steve Tanner

Katy Owen, a firecracker of a performer and Wise Children’s trump card, brings light and humour to the production. She steals the show first as a spoiled, uppity Isabella Linton, then in the role of her fragile tyrant of a son Little Linton. As the latter, she’s tossed between the story’s burly men in a fine piece of physical theatre. And in both roles, her humour is matched by Mortimer’s canny costumes: a comical velvet bow for Little Linton and for his mother, a pompous, puff-sleeved dress that contrasts starkly with Cathy's gypsy dress and army boots.

Supported by a small, on-stage band, Ian Ross’s folky melodies are most effective when performed in close harmonies by the chorus, who act as a moral sounding board for the central figures or help gently shift the plot forward. Cathy's final number – a wind machine-swept nod to Kate Bush – is another highlight, infusing a somewhat samey soundscape with an electric jolt of pop-rock.

Lucy McCormick (Cathy). Photo: Steve Tanner

Deaths are not visibly dwelt on; a blackboard bearing the name of the deceased sweeps away each fallen party. The chorus, when not performing, sit reading on chairs lining the stage, jumping in and out of parts as needed. Then there's the narrator, Lockwood (Sam Archer),who interrupts the narrative at intervals. Together, these play-within-a-play elements place an unfortunate wall between the audience and the story's emotions.

Regardless, Rice presents an atmospheric and inventive adaptation of the classic novel, proving her company is comfortable tackling darker source material.