Arts > Theatre

Eight Things You Learn From Reading Jane Eyre

Norwich Theatre Royal

07/07/17

We're pumped for the National Theatre's brand new and innovative production of Jane Eyre that comes to the Theatre Royal 17th-22nd of July. If you've never read this fantastic novel before, then bloody well get on with it.

In the meantime, here are some life lessons that we can all learn from one of the best books of all time.

1 Don’t be snooty to Charlotte Bronte (or her little sis) and think you can get away with it. You (or someone suspiciously like you) will crop up in one of her novels and it won’t make pleasant reading.

2 Next time you take a carriage ride, be sure to leave home with insufficient funds and forget your luggage when you get off. That way, you might have to live as a vagrant for a couple of days, but you will eventually end up on the doorstep of the only (nice) family you have in the world and wind up an heiress. It’s worth the hassle.

3 Beware the man who wants to guilt trip you into a loveless marriage and then to travel with him to disease ridden, foreign climes where you’ll almost certainly die a horrible, untimely death. He might make it sound tempting, but it’s probably not for you.

4 Don’t trust anyone who tries to make you eat burned porridge for the good of your soul.

5 Some voices you hear in your head are definitely best ignored. Let’s face it, probably most of them.  But if you hear the voice of a lost love calling to you one night, wildly, eerily, urgently!  Then for goodness sake, don’t hang about.

6 Just say no. Did you think Jane should stay with Rochester after the unfortunate bigamous near wedding (it could happen to anyone) and discovery of the mad wife? That she should have fled somewhere nice and sunny and lived in unwedded bliss with the truculently sexy man of her dreams? Yes, well so did I, but not Jane... She’s made of sterner stuff and has the last laugh.

7 Don’t lock someone up in an attic for years, give them lots of reasons to be seriously ticked off with you, and then let them have access to a naked flame and expect it to end well.

8 Never give up. If Jane can do it, so can you.

Go here for tickets