Underdog: The Other Other Brontë — mightily entertaining story of three literary sisters

“What’s your favourite Brontë novel?” demands Gemma Whelan’s Charlotte Brontë at the outset of Underdog, bouncing through the National Theatre’s Dorfman auditorium, grabbing selfies with spectators and chatting away, secure in the knowledge that in any audience for a Brontë drama, most will have read Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë), many will have read Wuthering Heights (Emily) and a few will have read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Anne). 

And that’s the pecking order, right? But is it? And, if so, why? Sarah Gordon remixes the Brontë story to craft a funny, bubbling, bolshie play about sisterhood, feminism, creativity and fame. It’s mightily entertaining if, in the end, limited by its style.

From the get-go, Gordon’s drama is tongue-in-cheek about its own role as biography. “There may be some mistakes in this little revision,” admits Charlotte (after getting in a quick dig at Jane Austen for being on a banknote). In her account, the three Brontë sisters stride about the Howarth parsonage in full skirts and hefty boots, speaking in broad Yorkshire accents, expressing themselves in robustly anachronistic terms and jostling for publication in a world where the gatekeepers are all men. 

Charlotte’s contention is that in such an unequal society only a few women can push through, so it’s going to have to be her who becomes the much-discussed literary idol — whatever that means for the others. 

While the talk is of supporting one another, then, it’s Charlotte who dominates, claiming that it’s she who is the dedicated writer. In her depiction, Emily is frank and forthright and Anne, the youngest, is a meek little mouse. But Anne — the “other other Brontë” of the title — keeps kicking against this portrayal. “I am only small as your little sister,” she protests. “Nowhere else.”

It’s Anne who comes up with idea of male pseudonyms, Anne who first writes a novel about a governess, Anne who is the most radical and has a runaway success with her shocking The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (which depicts domestic violence and alcoholism). So when we see Charlotte suppress a reprint of the novel after her sister’s death, is that to protect Anne’s reputation? Or is it jealousy?

Anne is beautifully played by Rhiannon Clements as a gentle soul possessed of a strong will, passionate social conscience and fierce intelligence. Whelan’s Charlotte is a joy: funny, brusque, nakedly ambitious and not afraid to look mean. “I hope you won’t all judge me too harshly,” she implores of the audience. Adele James plays Emily as a woman of ferocious integrity, but her character is disappointingly sidelined.  

In Natalie Ibu’s enjoyable staging (a co-production with Northern Stage), a comic chorus plays all the men as caricatures — pompous publishers, smug critics and self-important authors. Period drama is witheringly satirised: an agonisingly slow journey is conducted at crawling pace using two large coach wheels and a pair of coconuts.

The play’s comic style doesn’t allow, however, for a more nuanced examination of the pertinent questions it poses about the glass ceiling, about competition for recognition and about cultural gatekeepers. Meanwhile we rather lose sight of real quality of the Brontë sisters’ writing and achievement. But as Anne (who pleasingly gets the final word) says: “We must constantly re-examine in order to move forward.”

★★★☆☆

To May 25, nationaltheatre.org.uk