Walk Invisible: The Brontë Sisters : poor stuff

Oh dear. Very infactual and the chav accents of the sisters (and Bramwell) made me laugh aloud.

I live in the area and they did a great Jo making main street look authentic, and the parsonage set was brilliantly made, but they shouldn't walk straight out of the parsonage onto the moors. The moors are quite a way up Haworth.

Nice to see the village on TV, but a big let down.

You probably know the area much better than me and the accent. I found this absolutely fascinating and the opposite of a let down. I also found it really moving. I thought the acting was brilliant. I can imagine if you live in the area you have more specific comments on levels of authenticity.

Have to agree, poor production. It was very superficial and the girls hard to understand at times. If you want to see a better version of the Brontes look out for The Brontes Of Haworth from 1973, so much more detail and without all the fanciful tat in this.

Totally agree.

The acting here was dismal. There was too much artistic licence and not enough fact. And what facts there were seemed to be all presented in a confusingly inaccurate order.

Good old BBC drama. Never fails to let you down.

You made a brand new account just to trash this?

Sorry, can't take a sock account seriously.

I thought it was a fine, gritty, moving production with remarkable performances.

I assure you I didn't create an account to trash this.

I'm an avid imdb reader, it's my movie bible, but have never written on it. I've meant to sign up for some time and just happened to do so tonight whilst watching this programme which was recently filmed in my village.

I thought it a good place to start and I am sure I'll contribute to many film threads now (we have to start somewhere).

I'm afraid I was very disappointed with this production which is a shame, having watched it being made and waited for some time with anticipation.

It was certainly nice to see our gorgeous village on prime time TV though ?

No! it was so wonderful to see how it would have been, I visited Haworth and have read everything I can about the Bronte's. I was fascinated with Branwell when I read of him and wish we had seen him storming off to the Inn on a horse.I would have loved to see Charlotte married and see if it was thought that she was pregnant when she died. I named by daughter after Charlotte Bronte.It was amazing to see her clothes at Haworth tiny tiny shoes and the miniscule writing.Their visits abroad and the events that broadened their knowledge. I wanted to see more of Patrick who had many meetings, and the well they had which saved them from polluted water. Their Mother in the beginning and the love she had for Patrick.The lost girls. Oh in fact I want so much more, there has to be more please.

Sadly not.

As a previous poster said, watch the far superior 1973 production, The Bronte's of Haworth to see how it should be done.

A comprehensive, all-including, complete biographical drama of the entire life history of this generation of Brontes, such as you describe, would have required a mini-series.

This was a one-off production focused on depicting one slice of the sisters' lives. I would deem it best to judge it on its own merits for that much; it was compelling and involving for what it did depict.

Yes a mini series I would love that I have no judgement on it I know I loved every minute as I replied to the person who headed it poor stuff, not me.I have deleted their heading now. It was brilliant and I do not understand the objections at all. I found it strange to hear a man say the f word in front of ladies at that time this didn't even happen in 1950, when they said he cursed and being brought up by a religious man I imagine it was bloody or something similar.Bring on a mini series or a once a week every week please.

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I found it strange to hear a man say the f word in front of ladies at that time this didn't even happen in 1950, when they said he cursed and being brought up by a religious man I imagine it was bloody or something similar.

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I was shocked, too - but, thinking about it, that was the whole point. Anything tamer wouldn't have been so effective - and we were meant to feel and fully understand how degenerate Branwell had become.

I agree about a mini-series. This two-hour drama left me craving more!







If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.

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and we were meant to feel and fully understand how degenerate Branwell had become.

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Exactly. And because we know the conventions of period films, his outburst really does pack a double punch. And of course Adam Nagaitis gives one hell of a performance.


Call me Ishmael

Asolutely agree - thoroughly enjoyed this production, and while I cannot judge its accuracy, it certainly conveyed what I imagine to be an authentic feel and atmosphere. And to be honest, I do enjoy the majority of BBC drama productions - so I can't agree with the earlier poster's critical comment on that issue either!
I shall nevertheless look out for the earlier version mentioned, although I vaguely remember it having been rather dull, which this show was definitely not.

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Asolutely agree - thoroughly enjoyed this production, and while I cannot judge its accuracy, it certainly conveyed what I imagine to be an authentic feel and atmosphere. And to be honest, I do enjoy the majority of BBC drama productions - so I can't agree with the earlier poster's critical comment on that issue either!
I shall nevertheless look out for the earlier version mentioned, although I vaguely remember it having been rather dull, which this show was definitely not.

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I need to check out the earlier series, too. It's not on YT. But I can't imagine it's better than this for realism. Older dramas were often too reverential (but not all).





If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.

Hi - I found this 'trailer' clip from YouTube. All terribly clipped and posh. There are a few further clips there as well. Michael Kitchen as Bramwell. Also six episodes (with Greek subtitles!) from what appears to be a 'docudrama' produced in 2003 with Patrick Malahide playing the father (with good Ulster accent). Imho neither of these possess the naturalism and immediacy of the recent version.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP-jk63kWso

Kind regards

Thanks for that, armstrongd_uk.

Anything about the Brontes is worth a look.





If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.

I know very little about the Bronte Sisters but thought it was a decent film and my wife loved it. Well done BBC.

Was it just me or did Branwell's glasses have a bit of an anti-glare tint to them?

i have been a fan of the bronte novels since i was a girl , we live forty mins away so we go a lot , i thought the drama was good, although they painted poor branwell i a very poor light , not much humour either , i am sure there would have been some laughter in that bleak house , the sisters were very intelligent as was branwell until he started to drink and take the mix he bought from the apothecary, the acting was good all three sisters were brought to life as i imagined them , emily was very tough and she was portrayed as such , charlotte was very feisty determined to make her own way ,at a time when women struggled to be taken seriously , ann was a quiet gentle girl but left her mark with her book the tenent of wildfell hall , all in all i enjoyed it very much , i will be watching it again over and over, can never get enough of the story of this amazing family and the wonderful legacy they left to the literary world, well done to everyone involved in the production of this fine drama .

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and the chav accents of the sisters (and Bramwell) made me laugh aloud.

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The accents didn't bother me at all, but then I'm from down south. What accent do you think would have been more appropriate and, more importantly, why?


Call me Ishmael

The family would have had a gentle Irish brogue, certainly not a 2016 Bradford accent. Accents aside, the actual use of the language was far too modern. It reminded me of the 90s teen dialogue, attitudes and behaviour in Titanic (1997)

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The family would have had a gentle Irish brogue, certainly not a 2016 Bradford accent. Accents aside, the actual use of the language was far too modern.

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A reader raised just such a point in next week's Radio Times (that Charlotte Bront had a strong Irish accent when she was at Roe Head School). RT gave this response:

A spokeswoman for the Bront Society tells RT: "Charlotte did have an Irish accent upon entering Roe Head School in 1831. However, Sally Wainwright's drama focuses on the years 1845 to 1848. By this time, all the Bront siblings had spent much time working in middle and upper-class households where any accent they had was not commented upon, to our knowledge. Elizabeth Gaskell, writing in the 1850s, noted that Mr Bront had 'now no trace of his Irish origin remaining in his speech'. It is reasonable to suppose that they had Yorkshire accents in adulthood: we know from their letters that they used Yorkshire phrases such as 'no go'. Sally Wainwright researched her script at the Bront Parsonage Museum over several months."


As for the language being too modern, I agree with Sally Wainwright's aim in trying to balance authenticity with the vibrancy needed to engage with a modern audience:

http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/culture/literature-and-creative-writing/creative-writing/walk-invisible-interview-sally-wainwright?in_menu=394638









If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.

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By this time, all the Bront siblings had spent much time working in middle and upper-class households where any accent they had was not commented upon, to our knowledge. Elizabeth Gaskell, writing in the 1850s, noted that Mr Bront had 'now no trace of his Irish origin remaining in his speech'. It is reasonable to suppose that they had Yorkshire accents in adulthood: we know from their letters that they used Yorkshire phrases such as 'no go'.

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I suspect that the OP is less exercised by the geography of the accents than the issue of class hence the reference to "chav accents." And perhaps the girls had indeed cultivated more middle-class accents through their employment as governesses, though I'm not at all sure what such an accent would have sounded like.


Call me Ishmael

Well, the accents may not have been precisely right, but then none of us knows just how much of an Irish accent the entire Bront family retained by this date, so I don't think it's a big deal myself. Nor do we really know what a Yorkshire accent of that time would have sounded like in preference to a modern one. At any rate, the last thing we needed was RP or even middle-class Irish. So I think the accents used were tolerable enough but then I'm a southerner.

As to the language, I'm not sure what particularly bothered you. (It always bugs me how in films set in the 18th & 19th Centuries contractions like "don't" and "won't" are avoided. Although conventional written English avoided them they were still the norm in spoken English and had been for centuries.)

However, one word did jump out of period for me, and that was "infantilize" which sounded more like early 20th Century psychological jargon, and could easily have been replaced.


Call me Ishmael

We do know what a strong Yorkshire accent sounded like (and still sounds like) - it is preserved in Wuthering Heights, in Joseph's voice.

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We do know what a strong Yorkshire accent sounded like (and still sounds like) - it is preserved in Wuthering Heights, in Joseph's voice.

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Yes, that's a good point.

But does anyone still speak in Joseph's dialect? I found this on YouTube:



Amazing how he pronounces "don't", "load" and especially "book" which sounds like "bee-uk." "Many" pronounced "monny" certainly appears in many 19th Century novels. I was amazed how he pronounces York, with a very pronounced "r" - That's surely quite unlike how people in Yorkshire would pronounce it today, no?



Call me Ishmael

Well - there are many variations of that accent - those in the south, around Sheffield, have a very different accent from those from the West Riding. My friend from Barnsley calls about boozes - buses. But my friend from the west riding doesn't sound like that at all.

Joseph's accent, from the high Pennines, might even be particular to Haworth itself. There was a man, a long time ago, who could listen to an accent and tell you which town or even village people came from.

To my ears, the man in the youtube clip has more than a hint of Lancastrian about him!

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they shouldn't walk straight out of the parsonage onto the moors

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Far be it from me to contradict a local (I'm from the south and didn't visit Haworth until 2015), but this website says the following:

At the time of Emily's life, the Parsonage and its location looked very different. The trees that crowd the graveyard had not been planted and the house was right on the edge of the town, bordering directly onto the moors. The Parsonage was also smaller as the northern extension was not added until after she and her family had died.

http://www.wuthering-heights.co.uk/locations/other-locations.php#parsonage






If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.

I'm mystified at the comment that they have chav accents. I'm from the area myself and speak with an even more authentic Yorkshire accent - I never knew that I spoke like a chav.

Indeed I'm not from the area, but the Yorkshire accent is not a chav accent in my book. It's a fine, proud regional accent with a deep root to it.

I'm from the area and I enjoyed it but ! I found it hard to believe the warm welcome they got from the male publishers in London .They fawned over them, and the massive FEAR of being frowned on as women didn't write , was somehow brushed aside lightly by their hearty welcome.Bit unrealistic that .

I could have sworn someone shouted Finn out during filming - that's Charlotte's real name.
Anyway , still an entertaining programme and it may well bring more visitors to the area which would be good.

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the massive FEAR of being frowned on as women didn't write , was somehow brushed aside lightly by their hearty welcome.

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I think you are seriously overstating this. Women did write - and openly. Jane Austen didn't publish under a pseudonym.

Here's what Charotte Bront herself said on the subject:

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"Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called "feminine" we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we had noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true praise."

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Bront#cite_note-8 - my emphasis)

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And the ploy worked. The books were judged on their own merit without the gender of the writers getting in the way. Once the success of the books was clear, there was no reason for the publisher to be at all put out by the fact that they were authored by women.


Call me Ishmael

Here's an excerpt from the book "Charlotte Bront: A Life" by Claire Harman (italics are Charlotte's own words):

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Telling Mary Taylor about these eventful few days, in a wonderfully comic letter, Charlotte described how on arrival in the capital early the next morning she and Anne made for the Chapter Coffee House, not knowing where else to go:

We washed ourselveshad some breakfastsat a few minutes and then set of[f] in queer, inward excitement, to 65. Cornhill. Neither Mr. Smith nor Mr. Williams knew we were coming they had never seen usthey did not know whether we were men or womenbut had always written to us as men.

No. 65 Cornhill, the magical address to which Charlotte had been writing for the past year, turned out to be a large booksellers shop in a street almost as bustling as the Strand:

we went inwalked up to the counterthere were a great many young men and lads here and thereI said to the first I could accost

May I see Mr. Smith? he hesitated, looked a little surprisedbut went to fetch himWe sat down and waited awhilelooking a[t] some books on the counterpublications of theirs well known to usof many of which they had sent us copies as presents. At last somebody came up and said dubiously

Do you wish to see me, Maam?

Is it Mr. Smith? I said looking up through my spectacles at a young, tall, gentlemanly man

It is.

I then put his own letter into his hand directed to Currer Bell. He looked at itthen at meagainyet againI laughed at his queer perplexityA recognition took place. I gave my real nameMiss Bront

It is significant that Charlottes personal acquaintance with her publisher began with a laugh and a double-take. He never quite got over his amazement at the incongruity of it, that this strange little woman in glasses and old-fashioned travelling clothes was Currer Bell. And she, given the advantage of surprise, was able to make this first scrutiny of him without self-consciousness. What she saw was a tall, charming man of twenty-four, elegantly dressed and brimming with excitement at meeting her. He hurried his visitors into an office, where rapid explanations were gone into on both sides, accompanied by strong mutual condemnation of the shuffling scamp, Newby. At the first opportunity Smith called in his colleague Williams to share the revelation of their best-selling authors identity, and now it was Charlottes turn to be surprised, for Williams, her confidential correspondent of the past year, appeared in the guise of a pale, mild, stooping man of fifty, stammering and shy. The shock to both of them must have been profound, having communicated so freely and equally, to meet at last and have to fit their epistolary personalities into these unlikely casingsone of them female. There was a long, nervous shaking of handsThen followed talktalktalkMr. Williams being silentMr. Smith loquacious.

Smith was fully animated, and immediately had a dozen plans for the entertainment of the Misses Bront and their introduction to London society. [Y]ou must go to the Italian operayou must see the ExhibitionMr. Thackeray would be pleased to see youIf Mr. Lewes knew Currer Bell was in townhe would have to be shut up, et cetera, et cetera. Delightful though all these suggestions were, Charlotte cut him short with the warning that the sisters incognito had to be strictly preserved. She and Acton Bell had only revealed themselves to him to prove their innocence in the matter of Newbys lies. [T]o all the rest of the world we must be gentlemen as heretofore, she told him.

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If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.

Thanks for posting that, SuperG.

It's interesting how different the scene played out in real life compared to the TV version. In real life it seems to have been far less dramatic and initially almost wordless: Charlotte didn't really need to insist upon being seen etc, and it sounds is if her laughing at his confusion was precisely what spurred his realisation. I loved the scene as it was played on TV but the fact that that laugh didn't happen (or am I misremembering?) underlines the one criticism of the TV play that I can't honestly rebut: it was perhaps a trifle po-faced.


Call me Ishmael

You're welcome, austendw.

Claire Harman's book is comprehensive, but readable. Of course, you're always left wanting to know more!

I suppose the clerk's hesitancy could have been due to some haughtiness (or not!). And Charlotte's laughter may been more an inner chuckle than an outburst (or, again, not!).

George Smith, the young publisher, later described his first sight of Charlotte and Anne as "two rather quaintly dressed little ladies, pale-faced and anxious looking." Their anxiety stemmed from the fact that they didn't want their excellent relationship with Smith and Elder to be ruined, but they were deeply unhappy about revealing their true identities. Plenty to be po-faced about! The comic element of the scene comes from the shock and gradual realisation on the faces of the publishers.






If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.

You're right, of course. Their anxiety doesn't come across in Charlotte's own account. The "inner chuckle" sounds very plausible too. Good. That makes me feel better about the scene - which, though I wouldn't want to change it for an instant, as it plays so well - now does not seem to diverge from what we know of the meeting. Some say that sort of accuracy doesn't matter ('it's a play, not a documentary") but willfully altering what we know about an historical event bothers me, for some reason.


Call me Ishmael

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willfully altering what we know about an historical event bothers me, for some reason.

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Me, too.





If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.

Austendw, I've found a longer excerpt of George Smith's letter that you might be interested in:

That particular Saturday morning I was at work in my room, when a clerk reported that two ladies wished to see me. I was very busy and sent out to ask their names. The clerk returned to say that the ladies declined to give their names, but wished to see me on a private matter. After a moment's hesitation I told him to show them in. I was in the midst of my correspondence, and my thoughts were far from 'Currer Bell' and Jane Eyre . Two rather quaintly dressed little ladies, pale-faced and anxious-looking, walked into my room; one of them came forward and presented me with a letter addressed, in my own handwriting, to 'Currer Bell, Esq.' I noticed that the letter had been opened, and said, with some sharpness, 'Where did you get this from?' 'From the post-office,' was the reply; 'it was addressed to me. We have both come that you might have ocular proof that there are at least two of us.' This then was 'Currer Bell' in person. I need hardly say that I was at once keenly interested, not to say excited. Mr. Williams was called down and introduced, and I began to plan all sorts of attentions to our visitors. I tried to persuade them to come and stay at our house. This they positively declined to do, but they agreed that I should call with my sister and take them to the Opera in the evening.


Between Bronte's and Smith's accounts, I think that Sally Wainwright got that scene about right (with a little creative embellishment).









If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.

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Between Bronte's and Smith's accounts, I think that Sally Wainwright got that scene about right

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Very much so. It interesting, though, how the two narrators choose to emphasise different aspects of the encounter. Sally Wainwright reconstructs/damatises the meeting in such a way that both the accounts are respected. Very cleverly done.

Thanks for pursuing that.


Call me Ishmael

Yes. Nice work.

I watched it with my family, and we also found it difficult to understand some of the dialogue. However, I think it's a common issue with a lot of modern TV, where the makers strive for authenticity in the form of more naturalistic - and therefore, in their eyes, more realistic - dialogue.

It could be the sound editing/recording wasn't up to scratch, or it's an issue with the acting, and how the actors in question were directed. It's a shame, as I don't think the performances were poor, they were just let down by the dialogue. I've also heard criticism that some of the dialogue sounded too modern, a view I share.

I also expected more to be made of the setting, especially as it was such a major part of the sisters' upbringing and their writing. It also felt as if their writing was a secondary plot line compared to the struggles of their family life, particularly with Branwell. We did get to see their legacy in the final scene set in modern times, which was designed to show their influence. However, the plot never really explored the impact that Charlotte, Emily and Anne were having to any great depth, so the final scene felt out of context.

Overall, considering the impact the Bronte sisters had on English literature, it's a missed opportunity.