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The Age
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
It's time to meet the mystery woman behind Hitchcock's greatest hits
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.' It's often cited as one of literature's greatest openings: in just a few words Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca conjures its narrator's voice, its haunting setting and the tone that will carry the rest of the mysterious novel. In the 1950s du Maurier was Britain's highest earning female author. This year Malthouse Theatre will mount an adaptation of her story The Birds, while Melbourne Theatre Company will take on Rebecca. If you know du Maurier's name but not much more, it's a fine time to get better acquainted. Melbourne film writer Alexandra Heller-Nicholas lists du Maurier among her favourite authors. 'I'm actually surprised that more of her work hasn't been adapted. Her short stories are made for film. There's something really slippery about them that I find so beautiful, but also quite discomforting.' Like many, Heller-Nicholas came to du Maurier through Alfred Hitchcock. The master of suspense adapted three of du Maurier's tales – The Birds, Rebecca and the novel Jamaica Inn – but the long shadow he cast means that today most people associate those titles with the director, not the writer. For all their strengths, Hitchcock's films don't capture the extraordinary intimacy of du Maurier's prose. Heller-Nicholas calls Rebecca one of the great Gothic stories, comparing it to Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. 'It's a story about how reality can't keep up with a fantasy. It's powerful and it's dark and it's beautiful and it's intimate. Rebecca reads like somebody's whispering into your ear.' MTC artistic director Anne-Louise Sarks was living in London when she first happened upon a copy of Rebecca. She was bewitched. 'She draws you into the inner world of the characters, their fears and their fantasies, and then suddenly things get very complicated and the drama escalates. It is thrilling. This is a romance that becomes a mystery and it is thick with suspense.' The other reason Rebecca stayed with Sarks is that 'it was so ahead of its time. It's bold and her writing captures a wit and humour that still feels very fresh. Daphne du Maurier was speaking in a very sophisticated, coded way to women at the time and all these years later she still speaks to me.' Sarks says that du Maurier's ability to create landscapes through language is a gift to anyone trying to adapt her work. '(Her) writing is incredibly evocative. It's poetic and muscular. She crafts vivid descriptions of the trees, the flowers, the rhododendrons and azaleas, and of the woods surrounding Manderley. The natural world is another character in the book and in our production too.' Then there's the haunting (and perhaps haunted) setting of Manderley. The gothic manor was modelled on Menabilly, a gorgeous country home in Cornwall that du Maurier discovered as a teenager and later restored. In private letters she often spoke of her love for the estate she called home for more than 20 years, and in a later essay on Rebecca she described it in terms as lavish and vivid as any of her fictions: 'At midnight, when the children sleep, and all is hushed and still, I sit down at the piano and look at the panelled walls, and slowly, softly, with no one there to see, the house whispers her secrets, and the secrets turn to stories, and in strange and eerie fashion we are at one, the house and I.' Du Maurier's life off the page was as interesting as anything she invented. Born into a sprawling dynasty of actors, authors and artists, she led a tomboyish childhood that translated itself into what she called the 'male energy' that fuelled her writing. She was rankled when people cast her as a romance novelist, but as the decades have passed her reputation as a serious literary talent has grown. She was a contradictory figure, described by some as reclusive and by others as a warm and witty host. She could be proud, but her own family only discovered she'd been made a Dame when they read it in the newspaper. Loading Du Maurier's elusive character is mirrored in her writing; even when grounded in reality, something unsettling hovers beneath the surface. Du Maurier's delicate use of the paranormal brings to mind Shirley Jackson, another mid-century author whose work frequently produced a sense of the eerie. 'The parallels with Shirley Jackson are really interesting,' says Heller-Nicholas. 'Whether we want to call them capital-F feminist writers or not is obviously open to debate, but certainly these are two writers who at their best were interested in the gendered experience. They really understood how the fantastic is a language to explore that.' The Birds is one of du Maurier's most effective short stories. Unlike Hitchcock's sunny version, the original takes place in grey Cornwall, where a farmer and his family find themselves under inexplicable avian attack. As it becomes clear that this violence is both coordinated and occurring across the country, the beleaguered victims find their chances of rescue dwindling while their questions only grow. Malthouse artistic director Matt Lutton hit upon du Maurier's short story while pondering the possibility of 'adrenaline and terror in the theatre. How can we create something that will really have a big bodily impact on audiences?' He recalled that Hitchcock's adaptation had terrified him, but when he came to the original tale he found so much more to play with. He took the idea to writer Louise Fox. She called it a no-brainer: 'Du Maurier's a deeply adaptable writer, for theatre, for film, for other mediums ... Her metaphors stay open, and her use of genre and the paranormal and the mysterious is very evocative. It's weird because she was always considered a romance writer. But actually, she's a writer about anxiety and paranoia and fear and overthinking. She's probably got more in common with Kafka than she has with a romance novelist.' Critic Mark Fisher has attributed the eeriness of du Maurier's tales to the way they reveal how our attempts at making sense of the world are laughably fragile. Birds shouldn't attack en masse. Rebecca should stay dead, or at least have the decency to out herself as a ghost. Fox agrees that the sense of fighting something you can't even explain is something people of all eras can understand: 'The desperate attempt to try and make sense of something that is incomprehensible or unexplainable or hard to define.' Lutton and Fox's adaptation will be performed by one woman (Paula Arundell) complemented by a rich soundscape piped through headphones straight to audience members' ears. The director says his aim is 'to tap into that very primal animal instinct of what it means to feel attacked. We all know what it is to be swooped by birds. You naturally protect your eyes, your ears, and I think that's about feeling, in a metaphorical way, like something much larger than you, that you definitely can't control, is assaulting you.' He jokes that audience members fleeing their seats would be a sign of success, but also notes that 'there are no birds in the theatre. It's sound and it's light and it's a performer. It's the power of a ghost story or a campfire story. When you tell a campfire story, you start to see the story in the shadows around the fire.' As long as we keep telling stories, hopefully, du Maurier's shadows will keep offering up their secrets.
Sydney Morning Herald
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
It's time to meet the mystery woman behind Hitchcock's greatest hits
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.' It's often cited as one of literature's greatest openings: in just a few words Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca conjures its narrator's voice, its haunting setting and the tone that will carry the rest of the mysterious novel. In the 1950s du Maurier was Britain's highest earning female author. This year Malthouse Theatre will mount an adaptation of her story The Birds, while Melbourne Theatre Company will take on Rebecca. If you know du Maurier's name but not much more, it's a fine time to get better acquainted. Melbourne film writer Alexandra Heller-Nicholas lists du Maurier among her favourite authors. 'I'm actually surprised that more of her work hasn't been adapted. Her short stories are made for film. There's something really slippery about them that I find so beautiful, but also quite discomforting.' Like many, Heller-Nicholas came to du Maurier through Alfred Hitchcock. The master of suspense adapted three of du Maurier's tales – The Birds, Rebecca and the novel Jamaica Inn – but the long shadow he cast means that today most people associate those titles with the director, not the writer. For all their strengths, Hitchcock's films don't capture the extraordinary intimacy of du Maurier's prose. Heller-Nicholas calls Rebecca one of the great Gothic stories, comparing it to Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. 'It's a story about how reality can't keep up with a fantasy. It's powerful and it's dark and it's beautiful and it's intimate. Rebecca reads like somebody's whispering into your ear.' MTC artistic director Anne-Louise Sarks was living in London when she first happened upon a copy of Rebecca. She was bewitched. 'She draws you into the inner world of the characters, their fears and their fantasies, and then suddenly things get very complicated and the drama escalates. It is thrilling. This is a romance that becomes a mystery and it is thick with suspense.' The other reason Rebecca stayed with Sarks is that 'it was so ahead of its time. It's bold and her writing captures a wit and humour that still feels very fresh. Daphne du Maurier was speaking in a very sophisticated, coded way to women at the time and all these years later she still speaks to me.' Sarks says that du Maurier's ability to create landscapes through language is a gift to anyone trying to adapt her work. '(Her) writing is incredibly evocative. It's poetic and muscular. She crafts vivid descriptions of the trees, the flowers, the rhododendrons and azaleas, and of the woods surrounding Manderley. The natural world is another character in the book and in our production too.' Then there's the haunting (and perhaps haunted) setting of Manderley. The gothic manor was modelled on Menabilly, a gorgeous country home in Cornwall that du Maurier discovered as a teenager and later restored. In private letters she often spoke of her love for the estate she called home for more than 20 years, and in a later essay on Rebecca she described it in terms as lavish and vivid as any of her fictions: 'At midnight, when the children sleep, and all is hushed and still, I sit down at the piano and look at the panelled walls, and slowly, softly, with no one there to see, the house whispers her secrets, and the secrets turn to stories, and in strange and eerie fashion we are at one, the house and I.' Du Maurier's life off the page was as interesting as anything she invented. Born into a sprawling dynasty of actors, authors and artists, she led a tomboyish childhood that translated itself into what she called the 'male energy' that fuelled her writing. She was rankled when people cast her as a romance novelist, but as the decades have passed her reputation as a serious literary talent has grown. She was a contradictory figure, described by some as reclusive and by others as a warm and witty host. She could be proud, but her own family only discovered she'd been made a Dame when they read it in the newspaper. Loading Du Maurier's elusive character is mirrored in her writing; even when grounded in reality, something unsettling hovers beneath the surface. Du Maurier's delicate use of the paranormal brings to mind Shirley Jackson, another mid-century author whose work frequently produced a sense of the eerie. 'The parallels with Shirley Jackson are really interesting,' says Heller-Nicholas. 'Whether we want to call them capital-F feminist writers or not is obviously open to debate, but certainly these are two writers who at their best were interested in the gendered experience. They really understood how the fantastic is a language to explore that.' The Birds is one of du Maurier's most effective short stories. Unlike Hitchcock's sunny version, the original takes place in grey Cornwall, where a farmer and his family find themselves under inexplicable avian attack. As it becomes clear that this violence is both coordinated and occurring across the country, the beleaguered victims find their chances of rescue dwindling while their questions only grow. Malthouse artistic director Matt Lutton hit upon du Maurier's short story while pondering the possibility of 'adrenaline and terror in the theatre. How can we create something that will really have a big bodily impact on audiences?' He recalled that Hitchcock's adaptation had terrified him, but when he came to the original tale he found so much more to play with. He took the idea to writer Louise Fox. She called it a no-brainer: 'Du Maurier's a deeply adaptable writer, for theatre, for film, for other mediums ... Her metaphors stay open, and her use of genre and the paranormal and the mysterious is very evocative. It's weird because she was always considered a romance writer. But actually, she's a writer about anxiety and paranoia and fear and overthinking. She's probably got more in common with Kafka than she has with a romance novelist.' Critic Mark Fisher has attributed the eeriness of du Maurier's tales to the way they reveal how our attempts at making sense of the world are laughably fragile. Birds shouldn't attack en masse. Rebecca should stay dead, or at least have the decency to out herself as a ghost. Fox agrees that the sense of fighting something you can't even explain is something people of all eras can understand: 'The desperate attempt to try and make sense of something that is incomprehensible or unexplainable or hard to define.' Lutton and Fox's adaptation will be performed by one woman (Paula Arundell) complemented by a rich soundscape piped through headphones straight to audience members' ears. The director says his aim is 'to tap into that very primal animal instinct of what it means to feel attacked. We all know what it is to be swooped by birds. You naturally protect your eyes, your ears, and I think that's about feeling, in a metaphorical way, like something much larger than you, that you definitely can't control, is assaulting you.' He jokes that audience members fleeing their seats would be a sign of success, but also notes that 'there are no birds in the theatre. It's sound and it's light and it's a performer. It's the power of a ghost story or a campfire story. When you tell a campfire story, you start to see the story in the shadows around the fire.' As long as we keep telling stories, hopefully, du Maurier's shadows will keep offering up their secrets.
Economist
08-05-2025
- General
- Economist
The Church of England is dying out and selling up
Push open the heavy door and step inside. The sound as it slams behind you will feel loud, almost rude, in the old, cold silence. For St Torney's Church in Cornwall is very old indeed. The Normans built it. The Tudors enlarged it. The Victorians meddled with it. Daphne du Maurier immortalised it in 'Jamaica Inn'. It has outlasted the Reformation and the civil war.
The Independent
17-03-2025
- The Independent
How Jamaica has bounced back after the devastation of Hurricane Beryl
Jamaica's cultural contributions are legendary. Birthplace of Bob Marley and Usain Bolt, the island has given us reggae, jerk and rum to name but a few attributes. It continues to be one of the most vibrant destinations in the world - but the past year has not been easy for the Caribbean gem. Despite its sunny disposition, the island endured dark days last year when Hurricane Beryl – a category five storm at its peak with winds as strong as 165mph – swept ashore wreaking havoc, death and destruction. Fortunately, residents responded quickly and Jamaica has bounced back. The first westerner to fall for its charms was Christopher Columbus back in 1494 who called it 'the fairest isle that eyes have beheld'. It's a description that remains accurate today. Beyond the major urban hubs of capital Kingston and Montego Bay (where most visitors touch down), the island is lush and wild, dominated by the dramatic coffee-producing peaks of the Blue Mountains. An emerald interior of rainforests is sliced by rivers and dotted with waterfalls, while a coastline of soft, sandy shores is lapped by the inviting Caribbean Sea. But Jamaica is far more than a place to experience solely from a sun-lounger with a rum cocktail in hand. Here's our guide to seeing and experiencing the very best of what's on offer… Bed down like a star Located along a quiet stretch of coast near the town of Ocho Ríos and bookended by rugged headlands, the family-run Jamaica Inn has 55 TV-free rooms, suites and cottages. The focus is on quiet luxury, personalised service and old-school glamour – gentlemen are required to wear collars and trousers after 7pm while ladies are encouraged to dress up. Aside from eight years at the very beginning, the dusky-blue two-storey British colonial-style property has been in the same family since it opened in 1950 and has welcomed many notable guests in the decades since. Winston Churchill spent his time here painting watercolours from the verandah of a room now named in his honour, Marilyn Monroe honeymooned here with Arthur Miller and, more recently, Meghan Markle chose it as the venue for her first wedding in 2011. A framed photo of the Duchess and her estranged father taken at the property sits amongst many others on a table in the library. Lime like a local The community of Ocho Rios (meaning 'Eight Rivers') is located close to the Jamaica Inn. Once a quiet fishing village and known simply as 'Ochi' to locals, it has a craft market selling handmade souvenirs and some fun bars where locals gather for a spot of liming – a term used to describe the art of hanging out with pals. Head to the Arsenal Sports Bar, where the reggae is loud and the drinks are strong. It's teeny-tiny, with only four stools along the bar, and a little tricky to find. Just look for the bright yellow exterior decorated with a hand-painted mural of Gunners striker Bukayo Saka. Dig musical roots No man encapsulates Jamaica more than Bob Marley. Delve deep into the story of the island's most famous son in the sleepy hills of the parish of St. Ann, where he was born on February 6, 1945. It's possible to visit his childhood home in the hamlet of Nine Miles which has been preserved with a number of his personal possessions and is now managed by members of the Marley family. Known as ReggaeLand, it's also his final resting place. Fans can visit a chapel within the grounds. Blend with Bond When it comes to having a drink to remember, there's no better place than GoldenEye, a swish resort of bridges, lagoons, beach huts and fancy cottages that was once the private estate of James Bond creator Ian Fleming. After purchasing the land in 1946 and building a modest house, Fleming went on to write all 14 Bond books at the property. Following his death, it was sold and developed into a glitzy resort. Pull up a stool at the laidback beachfront Bamboo Bar. More of a way of life than merely a recipe, jerk seasoning is a complex and fiery blend of ingredients that dates back to the island's indigenous tribes and is used to marinate pork, chicken and fish. An island-wide obsession, it's served in restaurants and roadside shacks everywhere – but one of the most authentic places to try it is Scotchies, a no-frills restaurant chain with branches in Montego Bay and Falmouth Pier. Order a side portion of festivals. Made from flour, cornmeal and sugar, these deep-fried treats are similar to dumplings. Drift into the jungle If hiking isn't your thing, explore the jungle interior by water on a bamboo rafting experience along the Martha Brae River. Steered by local captains, the rafts – made from bamboo pole tied together and around 30ft in length – gently navigate a realm of tropical birds, butterflies and other wildlife. Jamaica has some of the most beautiful in all the Caribbean, but one of the very finest is the slither of sand at the Jamaica Inn. Quiet, private and secluded, with water that's as calm as it is warm, it's large enough to find a patch all to yourself – but small enough to never be too far away from the bar. How to plan your trip Five nights at the Jamaica Inn with Virgin Atlantic Holidays ( starts from £1,831 per person, including flights from London Heathrow and accommodation on a room only basis in May 2025.
The Guardian
07-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier review
The story of a shy young bride haunted by the spectre of her older husband's first wife, Daphne du Maurier's 1938 masterpiece opens with the immortal line: 'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.' Manderley is the ancestral Cornish home of widower Maxim de Winter, whom our nameless narrator first meets in Monte Carlo, where she is employed as a ladies' companion. A brief courtship and marriage follow, with the couple returning to Manderley after their honeymoon. But the flinty, gaslighting housekeeper Mrs Danvers hasn't got over the death of Rebecca, her last mistress, killed in a sailing accident a year earlier, and so she resolves to make the second Mrs de Winter's life a misery. She does this by undermining and humiliating her in front of the servants, and reminding her of her predecessor's effervescence, beauty and ability to run a home. Rebecca is one of several of Du Maurier's books to have been recently rerecorded (others include Jamaica Inn, My Cousin Rachel, Frenchman's Creek and The King's General). For this, her most famous novel, the actor Holliday Grainger is the narrator – her clear, intuitive delivery only occasionally marred by some odd pronunciation, most noticeably when referring the De Winter's dog, Jasper. Rebecca is often called a gothic romance – a perception exacerbated by assorted glossy film adaptations – though Du Maurier viewed it principally as 'a study in jealousy'. This recording taps into the darkness at the heart of the story and the suppressed desires of its protagonists that lead them inexorably towards violence and tragedy. Available from WF Howes, 16hr 34min The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of BuckinghamLucy Hughes-Hallet, 4th Estate, 25hr 42minA vivid portrait of the reviled George Villiers, AKA the Duke of Buckingham, who was lover and adviser to James I. Read by the author. BrothersAlex Van Halen, HarperCollins, 6hr 9min The rock'n'roll drummer narrates his memoir documenting his life, both personal and professional, with his late brother, Eddie.
