Brontë Players triumph again!

It’s said that ‘writing-by-committee’ isn’t usually a good idea, but the main item of entertainment at the Brussels Brontë Group’s 2025 Christmas lunch demonstrated gloriously that a brilliant team can write a brilliant sketch! 

The ‘Brontë Players’ team does in fact include two committee members of the Brussels Brontë Group, Pauline Ghyselen and Ana Gauthier. This was the second Christmas skit by our talented actor-playwrights and, as for the sketch last year, it was written by Pauline, Ana, Stavroula Kremmydiotou and Paul Willocx, with Ola Podstawka also joining the play-writing team this year. Aisling Keogh joined the team as an actor. 

As always, the whole of the Christmas lunch & entertainment laid on for our members was a team effort that came together on Saturday 6 December to provide yet another memorable end to yet another great Brussels Brontë year. 

Stavroula, Pauline and Ola as Emily, Charlotte and Branwell.

Pauline took care of the logistics for the meal and her fellow committee member Jones Hayden was Master of Ceremonies and Quizmaster as usual. His good humour — and sense of humour — are guaranteed to engender the right festive atmosphere. He came up with yet another taxing but highly entertaining Brontë quiz, full of erudition as well as enjoyable silliness in the form of absurd options in some of the multiple-choice questions. Questions covered all the Brontë novels and ranged from the name of the Brussels hotel with a Brontë suite to a question about real and fictional animals in the Brontë’s lives and books (true to tradition, Mr Rochester’s horse made an appearance). 

Ana takes a bow.

For this year’s sketch, the Brontë Players were inspired by Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to have the Brontë siblings visited by three ghosts. Not for the first time, the Christmas skit featured an inebriated Branwell waving a brandy bottle, but there was also a début appearance by Monsieur Heger, bearing presents from Brussels. Pauline Ghyselen played Charlotte, Stavroula Kremmydiotou was Emily and Aisling Keogh was Anne. Ola Podstawka played Branwell. Paul Willocx played the first and third ghost and Ana Gauthier the narrator and the second ghost. 

Brian Holland reciting.

Following our tried and trusted format, members did readings as additional entertainment, with Brian Holland reciting a poem wittily summarising Jane Eyre; Amelia Branczik telling us about how Charlotte Brontë got on at a party thrown by her literary idol Thackeray; and Mark Cropper reading a humorous poem by Sheila Fordham. Sheila has moved on from Brussels to Leeds but continues to be a member and to follow our activities at a distance. 

A raffle with Brontë-themed prizes closed the proceedings as usual. 

A brilliant novelty this year was the home-made Brontë-themed Christmas crackers created by Judi Nicolay and Georgette Cutajar. These contained not just party hats and tiny gifts but ingenious riddles, the answers to which were the names of members of the Brontë family and the Brontës’ fictional characters. 

   Helen MacEwan