BBC One. December 29, 21:00 h - To Walk Invisible

To Walk Invisible will be finally broadcast on BBC One next December 29th, 20:00 h and the BBC has released a media pack with several interviews with the cast and the writer Sally Wainwright:

"I wanted it to feel as authentic as it could. When people watch it I want them to feel that they are transported back in time. It’s not a chocolate box world and I hope it does reflect the real world that they lived in.
The primary aim of To Walk Invisible is to entertain people, for people to engage with it as drama and to enjoy it. I hope people will want to go away and know more about the Brontës, read their novels and read Emily’s poetry.
What’s interesting about the story to a contemporary audience is the domestic situation of the three Brontë sisters. The family are living with the alcoholic Branwell, who was very ill. It started in 1845 and goes through to 1848 when he died. The story is really about these three women living with an alcoholic brother and how they start trying to publish."

Interview with Jonathan Pryce:

What is To Walk Invisible about?
It’s about an extraordinary family. Three very self-contained women and then there's Branwell. There’s a lot of focus in this story on Branwell and it’s certainly the focus for me, because the girls were getting on with their writing, which was a secret from Patrick. People know less about Branwell and you discover what his problems were.

 Interview with Chloe Pirrie:

Has To Walk Invisible changed your perception of the work of the Brontës?
It’s changed my perception of all of them to some extent. I didn’t know anything about Emily before. I read Wuthering Heights when I was about 15 or 16, and when I got this job I reread it and had such a different experience. I had such a different reaction to it and perceived the characters very differently from how I did when I was younger.
Wuthering Heights is portrayed as a great romantic novel and when I read it again I thought, how is this romantic? All these people are horrible to each other! It’s just such a fantastic vivid, violent book in a way that I hadn’t processed. It had a strong effect on me, thinking about the person writing all these words and these dark characters. It’s such a forceful book, and when I read Sally’s script again I realised that Emily as a person is forceful. I could see absolutely where the script lined up with the author of this book. So that was very informative and it did change my perception of Emily.

Interview with Finn Atkins:

What makes it unique?
It’s not a sugar-coated drama about the Brontë family. It might surprise, because is shows them as real people. A lot more went on in their household than is necessarily known about. It’s nice to remind people these aren’t fairy tales, the Brontës were real people who went through a lot. It shows that side of their story.

Interview with Charlie Murphy:

Tell us about To Walk Invisible?
To Walk Invisible is a very real depiction of how things were back then, warts and all! It’s a harrowing look at family life in Haworth but it’s also gorgeous and has hope and spirit and is full of dark humour. It’s a depiction of real life, the sweet and the sour, there’s hope and there’s tragedy and that’s what life is isn’t it?

 Interview with Adam Nagaitis:

Tell us about your character?
I play Branwell Brontë. He’s an alcoholic and an addict in general. He’s also a writer, a painter and the brother of the Brontë sisters, the brother that people don’t really know about. His addiction drives a lot of this story; a lot of it is about the conflict between his sisters and him.
He’s very passionate and fiery and is young at heart but very intelligent. He’s a great artist and a really good writer but he just never honed down one skill and really worked at it. He was very unpredictable and saw himself as a gentleman. He wanted to be Lord Byron or someone, he wanted to be important and renowned, a famous author, and it just wasn’t going to happen, for many reasons.
I have a lot of opinions about what psychological conditions Branwell might have had. There are various books I looked at and people’s accounts and historian’s opinions are always different. He had seizures as a kid and didn’t get to go to school, and was educated by his father at home.