Nearly three decades after its Broadway debut, Charlotte Brontë’s beloved gothic masterpiece is finally getting its long-awaited UK premiere as a musical. Running at Southwark Playhouse Elephant, Jane Eyre The Musical combines Brontë’s brooding, passionate story with a soaring, five-time Tony-nominated score by Paul Gordon and John Caird.
Co-directed by Caird (Les Misérables) alongside Megan McGinnis, this intimate new staging brings the secrets, romance, and tragedy of Lowood School and Thornfield Hall closer to audiences than ever before.
Ahead of the run, Mark sat down with Jonathan Andrew Hume (playing Mr. Brocklehurst and Richard Mason) and Claire Greenway (playing Abbot and Grace Poole) to talk about bringing this gothic drama to life in an intimate venue and why this story still resonates so deeply today.
To start our chat, the pair discussed their roles and how they fit into the story.
Jonathan: "I'm playing Mr Brocklehurst and Richard Mason in the show. Brocklehurst is a pillar of authority that young Jane meets when she's going to school, and she's being shaped into what society thinks she should be. He is a towering inferno who frightens the fear out of everybody he's in charge of, both children and adults; young Jane is the only person who stands up to him and flusters him. It's the beginning of her origin story and her standing up to things put in front of her. It spurs her on to become the literary heroine that she becomes"
"Richard Mason is the brother of someone; I'm not going to say who because of spoilers. You first meet him, and there is something quite off about him. You're not quite sure who he is. You later find out he drops a huge bombshell that changes everything. Again, no spoilers, but if you've read the book, you'll know what happens!"
Claire: "I'm playing Abbot and Grace Poole and all of the ensemble things that we do. Abbot is a servant in the house of Mrs Reed. She's there as a figure of all the struggles that young Jane had against the adults in her life. There was very little love and understanding, and because she pushed back, all the adults in her life thought she was a devil child. Abbot is one more of those figures who doesn't understand Jane and ridicules her."
Jonathan: "It works in parallel with what is going on in the world today. There is a huge repression against groups and types of people. Jane Eyre is beautiful in it shows that it shows that there is still space for an individual to push back against a regime"
Claire: "What is difficult for Jane is that she is coming up against it as a young woman. As an orphan, as a ward of her aunt, so she's not part of the family, so is othered, then she's sent off to school where she is also othered and called a liar."
"Grace Poole is another mystery figure. She's a servant at Thornfield Hall who is described as a very singular person. She gets a lot of blame for the odd things going on. You slowly discover why Grace is the way she is and why she is there in the first place."
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| Claire Greenway. |
Mark: The book is nearly 200 years old. How do you approach bringing a fresh take on these characters?
Jonathan: "Even though the book is that old, even reading it once again, I read it when I was younger and read it again in preparation for this. I think the way it is written, it's not written in Old English; it's very much still modern. It was very much ahead of its time. It was an immediate commercial success, which is why it has stood the test of time. It's not really that hard to characterise these people in our. They are very human.
Claire: "You are not having to fix any old problems. There are things that came out 50 years ago that, to try and make a version of now, you would have to change massive parts of their personalities or the plotlines. The fact that it is talking about gender, which is incredibly prevalent at the moment."
Jonathan: "Hierarchy"
Claire: "Class; that never goes away. Morality is an interesting thing. People see a Christian or Catholic morality as being old-fashioned, but actually it's just one person's moral compass and how they see the world. Characters like Helen Burns help Jane through her life by saying, "Well, this faith helps me", without pushing it on to anybody or saying that it is the only way. Jane really discovers herself through somebody else saying this is how my faith helps me as a human and that forgiveness is very important. Understanding your own self-worth and trying to give forgiveness. All of this is very modern."
Jonathan: "The book and the show are very relatable to readers and the audience. Even though they weren't brought up in the Victorian period, they can still see things that they can mirror in their own lives. It really gets emotions and thoughts flowing. As actors putting it on the stage, we're already feeling that and we're really excited to see the audience feel that too."
Mark: This is a musical adaptation. How would you describe the sound of Paul Gordon's score?
Claire: "It's SO beautiful. I know the score, but this is a fairly new version; there are new songs, new material, and new orchestrations of the existing songs. The songs that I knew from the original score- I've always been in love with 'Sweet Liberty'; I think it's an underknown classic. It's a sweeping, I want ballad. Paul does it so well. He's got a mix of his origins as a pop writer and coming through as a theatre writer. It's a big, sweeping score. It's very powerful and emotional. It's very character-driven. Sometimes these scores get very big and beautiful, but it's more than just someone standing there singing; this has a lot more nuance and depth."
Jonathan: "There's a journey to it as well. Not just 'Sweet Liberty' but all of the songs in the show. They are written for a purpose. We are not getting on that stage and saying our lines and singing a song for the sake of it. Each lyric in each song has a meaning. It helps spur each character on; we are singing for a reason."
Claire: "That's the whole point of musical theatre, and sometimes you don't realise why you aren't connecting with a show but that is what's missing. It's the fact that these characters need to sing at that point."
Mark: If your characters were going to write a social media bio about themselves, what would they write?
Jonathan: "Mr Brocklehurst would be 'lies get you unfollowed'."
Claire: "Oh, I love that. Grace Poole would probably be writing something like 'someone get me away from this place and someone pour me a gin!
Mark: At the time of speaking, the show opens in 2 weeks. How do you mentally and physically prepare ahead of a run like this?
Jonathan: For me, each show is very different. You have to get stuck into the material first before you can figure out how to mentally prepare for it. For this show, as Claire was saying, we're not just our main characters; we're all playing parts in the ensemble. We're all Jane Eyre's voice at points in the show. As much as we get into our principal characters, we also have to get into the head of Jane Eyre. We are following her journey through the show at the same time. The level of preparedness is universal. We have to think of the whole thing in its entirety. On a physical level, we warm up vocally and physically. But it is all about story.
Claire: Because we are mostly in the round and the way the piece has been put together, the ensemble is bringing in and out pieces of the set and all of the props. A lot of my preparation at the minute is writing out complicated diagrams about where chairs go and when we pick up the bell and things like that. At the moment, the preparation almost feels like stage management.
Jonathan: As if we haven't got enough to think about!
Mark: You've both appeared in some major shows in your career already. How do you reflect on your careers so far, and how do you put what you've learned into Jane Eyre?
Jonathan: With gratitude. Every show that I've done, I've taken something away that has shaped me as an actor and a person. Going into another show, I'm open to meeting new people and learning new things, and to continuing that shaping of my career. It's a lot of gratitude. With Jane Eyre, even though the show is in an intimate venue and in the round, the show itself is so powerful that it's not even going to make a difference; it's going to have a huge effect on everybody.
Claire: Gratitude is something I always want to bring to something. For me, my journey has been really varied. I've done the West End, and I've done the tiniest of venues; I've done a lot of actor-musician work and puppetry. I have really enjoyed the variety of my job. When you come to a show like this, you are everything and everybody and moving around and moving set. It's part of the journey where everything is varied. Keeping my life varied means when you get into a show like this, which is full of fun challenges, you're not taken by surprise, and you take it in your stride and enjoy it.
Mark: What would you hope someone takes away from seeing Jane Eyre?
Jonathan: I honestly hope that their hearts and minds are adjusted and change in a way that they walk out of the theatre and start looking at each other and society with more compassion and thought for your fellow person.
Claire: I love that. I'd add to that there is a real journey of finding your own self-worth without losing it in other people. Not jumping on other people to get your self-worth, but finding that self-worth and identity, self-determination, and independence. We've got all these lovely words in the show that are very important to us. Finding that within yourself rather than putting other people down. I think that is an incredible thing to take away. I think for the young women in the audience, they'll be really elevated by the fact that there is this incredible female heroine with all this strength and power. I hope they also come away singing the most fantastic score I've heard in ages.
Jane Eyre The Musical runs at Southwark Playhouse Elephant from Friday 28th August until Saturday 24th October 2026. For tickets and more information please visit https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/jane-eyre/
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