To walk invisible

[Dowser]

Really looked forward to this but am finding it all a bit. Meh!

Anyone else watching
It might just be me
I'm a bit tired tonight

[FadedRed]

Same here, bit disappointing. Not sure if I'll stick with it for another hour.

[senua]

I'm finding it hard work.
Can't hear the dialogue properly.
Lots of grumpy, unlikeable people.
Lots of unVictorian colloquialisms.

[ColdTeaAgain]

My god it's bleak!

[Dowser]

So pleased it's not just me.

It seems a bit too far fetched for me.
There's another hour?

Don't think I'll bother

[EnthusiasmIsDisturbed]

It is bleak

Life was bleak it's a stunning part of the word but life was very harsh

Their novels are bleak

I'm liking it

[Crispsheets]

I'm enjoying it. What a grim existence. And Branwell was an utter knob.

[Dowser]

Swapped to 19'kids and counting

[ColdTeaAgain]

I'm sticking it out. The brother is so pitiful. Yep, if they were going for relentlessly bleak they nailed it!

[EnthusiasmIsDisturbed]

I thought it was very good very atmospheric and an insight into their lives but I still can not get my head around how Emily Bronte wrote Wuthering Heights with so much dark emotions and passion

[absolutelynotfabulous]

I enjoyed it, although it was hard work. I think it needed to be bleak, and it was, quite. I can't stand romanticised period drama.

I DID think it was a bit soapy, though. There wasn't much emphasis on the girls' considerable talent, or Branwell's, come to that. They came across as a snippy family, struggling along, that happened to do a bit of writing in between quarrels and walks on the hills.

My main gripe was with the dialogue, though. Too modern.

The location looked like the real Haworth-was it?

[Brontebiscuits]

Yes it was real Haworth.

[Rhubarb01]

I was looking forward to this but I did nod off a couple of times while watching and I'm not sure I'll bother to go back and rewatch the bits I missed. I quite liked the fact that the sisters had a bit of northern spirit and were feisty, particularly Charlotte. I'd never really thought about what they might have been like in real life.

As an aside I'm afraid I've always disliked 'Wuthering Heights' possibly because it was a set text at school and I really don't like Heathcliff but I didn't find Emily a very warm character in this either and perhaps that was intentional.

[absolutelynotfabulous]

Thought so, bronte. There was a rather good documentary on Bbc earlier in the year and they showed Haworth. I've never been; perhaps I should, although I've never been fond of the Brontes' writing.

[ColdTeaAgain]

I'm glad I watched it. I had no idea their father outlived them all, how desperately sad.

[EnthusiasmIsDisturbed]

They built the set but in Haworth

the accents would have been much stronger and language more colloquial that most of use would have struggled to follow plus the mumbling that the BBC insist on to add to their period dramas

[EnthusiasmIsDisturbed]

I don't think you are meant to like Heathcliff but maybe feel some empathy for him as a child and most of us have loved someone that has rejected us

I think WH is loved or loathed

[Rhubarb01]

Fair enough re Wuthering Heights - I love Jane Eyre though and can forgive Mr Rochester his faults although we really should censure him more. I couldn't help thinking that Charlotte was supposed to represent small, plain Jane in appearance.

[boilingkettle]

I really enjoyed it, but yes there were points that I had to rewind to try and make out what they were saying. The score was very dramatic, as were those moors! Just stunning...
Thought the focus was skewed though - for something that was supposed to be about the sisters, it felt more to me like Branwell's story, which was sad, but not really what I wanted to see.

[KarlosKKrinkelbeim]

I found it perfectly easy to understand but then I lived in Haworth for four years! I thought it was good. Liked the way it focussed on the writing rather than the tragic deaths.
They didn't bury the bodies deep enough in Haworth churchyard apparently - most insanitary!

[absolutelynotfabulous]

I find social history of that period fascinating. I read somewhere that Haworth Cemetery was full of infants, as mortality rates would have been really high. Perhaps no room for the sisters!

I'm intrigued by how they would have spoken. I'd always thought of the Brontës as being fairly solidly middle-class, educated and relatively well-off, living a twee life in a cutesy, isolated village. That's obviously not the case! Thinking about it, they were bang in the middle of the industrial revolution, surrounded by the fear of death and death itself, with two sisters dead of TB even before adulthood, a brother addicted to booze and opiates and no prospect of any improvement in their situation.

They were educated though, weren't they? Would they have really spoken with broad accents in the local dialect?

I'm quite tempted now by Gaskell's biog of Charlotte-anyone read it?

[Elendon]

I read Gaskell's Charlotte Bronte, many years ago, and I found it very dry, and hard going, unlike her novels. I would love someone like Claire Tomalin to write a book on the Brontes, her book on Jane Austen was fantastic.

I loved To Walk Invisible. I thought it captured all the bleakness and warmth of the household and was incredibly poignant. I had no idea about Patrick Branwell and his altogether miserable life. I also had no idea that Emily was so practical and loving either. I have to admit that I wept a few tears at the end when the camera panned around the Heritage Centre. Fascinating times and a fascinating family.

Life was indeed bleak in that part of the world and about 40% of children died before reaching infancy. The area had little by way of sanitation. The churchyard was filled regularly. Bleak probably doesn't begin to describe it.

I wonder who benefits from the rights to the books and many films?

[Elendon]

PS
My favourite novel of the sisters is the Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte. I often wondered if Anne had written this first would it have been more successful than Jane Eyre. One interesting fact I did learn after this programme was that Charlotte refused further printings of it after Anne's death.

[Elendon]

I thought Sally Wainright did an excellent production.

[absolutelynotfabulous]

I'm going to watch it again.

elendon I was thinking of "Tenant" too; that was one heck of a brave book! I got the impression from the programme that Anne was the quieter one, and perhaps overshadowed by Charlotte and Emily; yet she produced, imho, by FAR the most interesting book. Maybe it wasn't deemed suitable for the times or something? I've never liked JE OR WH.

Yes to a biography by Tomalin.

[Hockneypool]

Watching now and really enjoying it. I lived about 10 miles from Haworth as a teenager. It's a very bleak spot even on a sunny day. With the pasonage right next to the grave yard.
My favourite Bronte novel is Tenant of Widfel Hall too. We read Wurthing Heights for book group recently and were spilt evenly on the love or loath it.