Wuthering Heights

Our Review:

4 May 2009

It sounds such a good idea: Bronte goes to Bollywood in a brand new musical. But Tamasha’s lame cultural appropriation of Emily Bronte’s 1847 Yorkshire story is the worst kind of example of hitching a lift on a title and failing to make it your own, let alone animate the stage.

The doomed love affair of Cathy and Heathcliff is retold in that of graceful Shakantula (Youkti Patel) and lower caste Krishan (Pushpinder Chani), a gypsy Muslim boy from the streets of Bombay adopted into a farming family on the fringe of Rajasthan desert.

Shakantula marries a local landowner (Gary Pillai) for money and security, Krishan goes off for three years and makes his own fortune before returning to take vengeance by marrying Shakantula’s sister-in-law (Sheena Patel). Tragedy is consumed in a fairytale epitaph and a sentimental reunion in the afterlife.

The first weakness of Deepak Verma’s adaptation (which only scratches the surface of about half ...

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Latest User Review

rds - 15 May 2009:

Well it looked good, but was let down by poor acting, trite lyrics and a banal story line - this was in no way Bronte's Wuthering Heights. What were we left with then? Not a lot, unfortunately. I know the Lyric Hammersmith like to try new things, but this was one too far. Better luck next time then?...

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