The Bronte Sisters cast announced

Casting has been announced for the new two-hour BBC drama To Walk Invisible: The Bronte Sisters about the personal lives of the Bronte family, written and directed by Sally Wainwright, creator of Happy Valley.

The Bronte sisters’ personal lives are as intriguing as their writing: three unlikely geniuses under one unlikely West Yorkshire roof. Coming from obscurity to produce some of the greatest and most enduring classics of all time, with themes that shook the nation, Charlotte, Anne and Emily remain one the greatest literary mysteries in the world.
The drama revolves around the three sisters’ increasingly difficult relationship with their brother Branwell, who in the last three years of his life – following a tragically misguided love affair – sank into alcoholism, drug addiction and appalling behaviour. Life at home with the Brontes at this time was not a comfortable place to be, and yet from this environment sprang their remarkable literary output.

Scottish actress Chloe Pirrie (represented by The Artists Partnership) will play Emily, author of the complex and ground-breaking Wuthering Heights.

Finn Atkins will play the deeply ambitious Charlotte Bronte, who wrote the phenomenally successful Jane Eyre. Finn, from Nottingham, (also represented by The Artists Partnership) is an alumni of  The Television Workshop.


Irish actress Charlie Murphy, (represented by The Lisa Richards Agency in Ireland, who also starred in Happy Valley and The Village, will play the determined and level-headed youngest sister Anne, the writer of Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Their brother Branwell, whose destructive behaviour threatens to tear his family apart, will be played by Adam Nagaitis (represented by Curtis Brown).


To Walk Invisible: The Bronte Sisters explores the siblings’ relationship not only with one another, but with their father, a clever and unusual man, to be played by Jonathan Pryce, who grew up in an impoverished home in rural Ireland, who educated himself, and who was happy to encourage his children – irrespective of their sex – to become passionate about literature and its possibilities.

Sally Wainwright, who won a BAFTA Television Award for best Writer – Drama, said:

“I am thrilled beyond measure that I've been asked by the BBC to bring to life these three fascinating, talented, ingenious Yorkshire women.”

Executive producer Faith Penhale said: “To bring such fresh and exciting talent together for To Walk Invisible is testament to Sally's extraordinary script, which sets out to tell the true story of this iconic literary family. Together with the wonderful Jonathan Pryce, Chloe, Finn, Charlie and Adam will show the Bronte family in a new and original light.”

Filming on the two hour drama begins on location in and around Yorkshire from the beginning of May.