Bringing the Barn season to a stunning close, Being Jane Eyre, written and directed by Lou Wallace, opened at the Handside Lane theatre in June.

Having exhausted the usual school plays, The Crucible (three times), Romeo and Juliet and Midsummer Night’s Dream (twice), Drama teacher Lou Wallace wanted to try something different.

In 2019 with a group of 39 students, over four "mad weeks", she set about devising a stage adaptation of Jane Eyre.

The school students "were amazing" but Wallace had always wanted to see how the play would work with some adults in the company.

Being Jane Eyre, the final production of the Barn’s 22/23 season, is the expression of that wish and if I could award stars, this one would get all of them. It is a very exciting must-watch show.

You enter the auditorium and immediately suspect that Being Jane Eyre might be something special. The 13-strong ensemble cast are already established on stage, lit as though by candle light and each engrossed in a book.

Fire buckets are positioned either side of the stage The only colour in the white and grey palette is the hint of blood red behind a window above. A tantalising glimpse of the madwoman in the attic.

The onstage band starts to play, double bass, guitar, keyboards, drum, and the atmosphere builds as the cast sing the pulsing motif…for a book read by a thousand different people Is a thousand different books.

There is nothing run of the mill about Being Jane Eyre, it is ambitious, powerful, creative, playful, and feels like something you would expect to see on a professional London stage.

Charlotte Bronte, played by Lorna Thomson, sits down at her desk to write "the most popular book ever written… except for the Bible" and the ensemble cast of actor musicians jostle around her desperate to bring her story to life. And bring it to life they most certainly do.

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Dialogue darts between them, songs effortlessly emerge, costume and scene changes weave into the action of the play. Pivotal letters travel in a wave from hand to hand around the stage, a coach of cast members and umbrellas appear to take Jane to a new location.

The talented and committed cast, the youngest of whom is only 11 years old, work brilliantly together to create this captivating world. There were so many stand-out performances on stage that it would be impossible to single them out.

The story of the Victorian orphan Jane Eyre, as we know, isn’t full of the funnies, and this performance doesn’t hold back from its more harrowing or moving aspects.

The 12 measured thwacks with a cane on the hand of Helen Burns almost took my breath away and I had tears in my eyes on more than one occasion. But the staging has such an exquisite lightness of touch that this production feels anything but bleak or sombre.

I do hope this is the beginning of the life of Being Jane Eyre, and that other casts and companies will be able to explore its richness in the future. It could almost be a love letter to literature and theatre and deserves to be seen more widely.