The Tenant of Wildfell Hall review – vivid Brontë battle of the sexes

When Acton Bell’s second novel was published it was proclaimed “revolting, coarse, disgusting” and “unfit to be noticed”. It was a bestseller. Back in 1848, the author dared not publish under her own name: Anne Brontë. A woman to write such a book? Inequalities between the sexes are at the heart of her story; not all have been left behind in the 19th century.

The tenant in question, recently arrived with her small son and female servant, is Helen, whose mysterious ways excite local gossip and religious opprobrium. Having fled a vicious marriage (its circumstances timelessly cruel), Helen is obliged to be secretive. If discovered, she will lose her son; male-oriented laws favour a husband, whatever the circumstances. Helen’s own moral convictions oblige her to discourage the love of local farmer, Gilbert, even though she reciprocates his feelings (Michael Peavoy ranges emotional scales of hope, jealousy, despair and resolution). They also compel her to return to nurse her injured husband (the tyrannical hell-fearing rake vividly played by Marc Small). Upright, determined, straight-spoken, strong without being aggressive or rude, religious but neither pompous nor pious, Helen’s complex character is magnificently distilled by Phoebe Pryce in a performance of clarity and understated power.

Deborah McAndrew’s astute adaptation maintains Brontë’s structure but alters events to dramatic effect, building on moments of discovery and decision that precipitate changes in the characters’ situations. We live their choices with them. The contrasts between temporal and eternal realities underpinning Brontë’s novel are conjured, in Amanda Stoodley’s design, by broken, dry-stone walls suggesting snug homes and wild moors, and in Ben Occhipinti’s soundscape, by cello notes bridging human tones and wuthering winds. Harmonising all these elements, Elizabeth Newman’s direction finely tunes Brontë’s past to our present.

At the Octagon theatre, Bolton until 22 April, then touring