The Phoenix Theatre and Arts Centre in Bordon will host the opening performances of a tour of Jane Eyre: An Autobiography on September 23 at 2.30pm and 8pm.

Live Wire and Roughhouse Theatre’s production of Charlotte Bronte’s classic coincides with a poignant anniversary in the novelist’s life.

In the spring of 1825, nine-year-old Charlotte saw her sisters Maria, ten, and Ellzabeth, 11, die of tuberculosis within weeks of each other.

Director Shane Morgan said: “There is no doubt whatever that the devastating impact of Maria and Elizabeth’s deaths at just ten and 11 years old respectively was the key to the germination of Jane Eyre, whose orphaned heroine endures childhood loss, rejection and isolation as she embarks on her quest for familial love and somewhere to belong.”

Adapted by Dougie Blaxland and produced by the team that won the 2021 National Campaign for the Arts Award, Live Wire and Roughhouse Theatre’s Jane Eyre: An Autobiography is a revival of its 2015 production.

Central to bringing Jane Eyre: An Autobiography back to the stage 178 years after its publication was what movement director Moira Hunt described as “its compelling relevance for women in the 21st century”.

She said: “Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre broke the mould of the Victorian female stereotype through its dramatisation of a woman of independent mind and means who refuses to be subservient in any way to her male counterparts.”

Alison Campbell - a graduate of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School - will reprise her role as Jane Eyre.

She said: “The revival of the production to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the death of Maria and Elizabeth Bronte is of great significance in honouring the extraordinary Bronte family as a whole and highlighting the creative genius that emerged in the face of tragedy.”

For tickets, priced £17 (concessions/members £16), visit www.phoenixarts.co.uk