The Moors by US writer Jen Silverman is set in an isolated house on the wild, desolate, foreboding moors – a world familiar to us from the novels of the Brontë sisters. Many of the tropes from Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are referenced, but have been given a feminist, queer twist in this fantastical, subversive satire on the Victorian gothic romance.

Romy Bartz and Brielle Flynn. Photograph © Clare Hawley

The very proper and professional Emilie (Brielle Flynn) arrives to take up a position as a governess having been corresponding with Branwell (the name of the Brontë’s brother), the head of the household, whose letters have made her heart flutter. Greeted instead by his steely sister Agatha (Romy Bartz), she discovers that the dissolute Branwell is locked up in the attic, and there is no child in sight. There seems to be one maid (Diana Popovska) who answers to different names – Marjory in the parlour and Mallory in the scullery – while Agatha’s dizzy, younger sister Huldey (Enya Daly) is obsessed with the idea of fame, and spends her days scribbling her thoughts in a diary.

In a surreal touch, there’s also...