Are we approaching some sort of Brontë anniversary? Or is it simply the 40th anniversary of this long-forgotten dramatization of the “Brontë story” that’s being marked with a two-disc DVD release? The Brontës of Haworth has hardly gone down in the annals of TV drama history, such as, for instance, I, Claudius, the 1976 adaptation of the Robert Graves’ novel currently being repeated on BBC Two. This is probably not surprising, since the Roman emperor’s life was hardly lacking in incident, and the same cannot be said of the talented siblings Emily, Charlotte, Anne and their troubled, underachieving brother Branwell.
Scripted by playwright Christopher Fry and directed by Marc Miller the five-episode drama is a Yorkshire Television production, so perhaps a reminder that commercial television has never quite pulled off a costume drama with as much aplomb as the BBC. Still, it’s a tricky one. Talking and writing alone cannot a compelling drama make, and there are innumerable sequences which show the sisters simply talking and walking, literally in circles around a table, to ward off the frustration and boredom of their constricted lives.
Early episodes focus on Branwell (Michael Kitchen), in whom, being male, so much was invested. The first episode opens with their father (Alfred Burke) purchasing a birthday present for his young son. The box of toy soldiers the eight-year-old Branwell receives fuels the imaginations of each of the children, yet, in a tragic irony, it’s only Branwell who is convinced that he will grow up to write masterpieces or become a great portraitist. One is left with the impression that it is indecision and irresolution that finally wreck him, driving him to drink and inducing episodes of catatonic depression. Like each of his siblings his life is cut pitifully short.
Led by Kitchen and Burke, the strong ensemble cast includes Vickery Turner as Charlotte, Ann Penfold as Anne and Rosemary McHale as Emily. Using material from Elizabeth Gaskell's posthumous biography of Charlotte Brontë, it is narrated by Barbara Leigh-Hunt as the North and South author.
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