Charlotte Brontë narrates this boisterous re-telling of the Brontë story, trying to defend what appears to be a fairly rocky journey that led to her being crowned the genius of a family of precocious talent and her youngest sister, Anne (the ‘underdog’) being consigned to the dusty corners of literary history for over a hundred years! Charlotte bounds into the auditorium, constantly aware of her modern audience throughout, and perhaps increasingly concerned how her actions might appear to modern sensibilities. In her lifetime, Charlotte Brontë was desperate to be ‘forever known’: hungry for fame, yet also painfully aware that as a woman in a man’s world, she and her sisters were forced to ‘walk invisible’ in order to get their work published.

This bold, funny play includes a riot of over 30 characters (in addition to the three sisters), played with frantic energy by an ensemble of five actors with around 50 costume changes. It’s fast-paced, physical and lots of fun. We’re a long way from the silence of the parlour in Haworth, yet surely the wild imaginations of these three women was constantly bubbling under the surface of their apparently ordinary lives?