Branwell has tried and tried and tried. He has missed his calling and his genius has faded. He drinks too much, maybe, and can’t quite shake himself free from his own imagination. But he still has Lydia.

Lydia has had enough. Gnawed by loneliness and physical frustration, immobilized by her station, companionship and release must be had, and soon. An afternoon or two in the company of her son’s young tutor might be enough.

Charlotte has a plan. Her younger sister stays up late into the night, hunched over papers. If this is what she thinks it is, something might be beginning. But perhaps it is of no importance.

A searing critical exploration of the cruel gender politics that destroyed a man, made a villain of his lover and chained his sisters to a life they despised, The Dissolution of Percy tackles the controversial events surrounding the final few years in the life of Branwell Brontë. Reflecting on our surprising lack of moral evolution between the nineteenth century and the modern day, the play plunges its audience into a world balanced in stark counterpoint between high, violent passions, steady, grim pragmatism and gallows humour.

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