Emma Rice has brought us an evening of dark joy in which love is the force that both binds together and pulls apart. Where perfection is always out of reach; as Catherine says, “I once dreamt I was in Heaven, but it didn’t feel like home”. Whatever liberties Ms Rice has taken with her original are ultimately justified by an evening of immaculate, relevant, storytelling. Here we find the Yorkshire Moors as Chorus.  Led by Nandi Bhebhe, it is the ever-present mise en scène, the narrator, advisor and elemental force of nature. 

Heathcliff (Ash Hunter) is a granite block with a soft centre, a brooding outcrop of the moors whose forbidding exterior can be breached only by the energy source that is Catherine. In Mr Hunter’s hands Heathcliff becomes the embodiment of blunt will that can remain after love has become twisted or has drained away.

Lucy McCormick as Catherine, bubbles and spits energy. Madness seems the only logical outcome for her thwarted, intense passion, which brings her permanently close to the edge of sanity. Her theatrical wiring consists of a bank of switches any one of which she can throw on a moment’s whim taking her down a new psychological path with n’ere a backward glance. It is an inspiring performance and potentially a career-defining role.

Amidst the gloom there is fine acting from all. Comedy abounds with Sam Archer giving us a Lockwood from Ripping Yarns and a dandified yet multi-faceted Edgar Linton.

Taking the biscuit for laugh-out-loud invention is Katy Owen whose colourful and quirkily costumed Isabella and milky, petulant, Little Linton both help to sugar what is a very dark pill.

In truth, at the end of a long and enjoyable first act, one is tempted to jump up and cheer at the sheer brilliance of what we’ve been watching, so act two, whilst not disappointing, is on the anti-climactic side, being given over to a post-Catherine world. It gives the impression of being a kind of coda, a tying up of strands that were left floating in the mire after Catherine’s death.

Vicki Mortimer’s set and costume design is witty and conducive to the continual flow of action. Music by Ian Ross and performed by the onstage band is point perfect in support of the emotional ebb and flow of the swift moving plot. Again technical support from back projection and incidental sound is restrained and pertinent.

If there were any actual ghosts floating around on the stage, one may be the ghost of Kneehigh whose particular brand of fairy-dust-of the-talents, Emma Rice has scattered by the handful.

Last night was one of those happy evenings where theatre seems to trump all other media – miss it and miss out!    ★★★★★   Graham Wyles   21^st October 2021