A NEW rock musical aims to tell the tale of the Brontë siblings as never before.

Wasted is being staged as a ‘work in progress’ this month at the West Yorkshire Playhouse as part of the Leeds theatre’s Brontë Season.

Writers Christopher Ash and Carl Miller have set out to capture the angst and unrest of four misfit kids from a Yorkshire village who yearned to be heard, found fame beyond their wildest hopes and died tragically young.

The show is set in the 1830s but reflects the contemporary resonances of the Brontë children’s struggles to find love and creative success in the face of illness, addiction and misfortune.

Carl said: "Anne, Branwell, Charlotte and Emily Brontë went from obscurity to celebrity to premature death on a classic rock band trajectory.

“This is a show for people who love the Brontës and their work, as well as those who had no idea what an amazing bunch of rebellious geniuses they were: gritty not genteel, passionate not polite.”

Wasted recently won the prestigious UK Musical Theatre award from the Kevin Spacey Foundation, which recognises the best up-and-coming artists in the UK, US and Canada.

It has been included in the WYP’s Brontë Season, which marks the bicentenary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth and explores contemporary responses to the Brontë’s work.

A spokesman said: “Poor, unemployed, ignored and patronised - the Brontë siblings didn’t have much going for them as they struggled to find their way in the world.

“They were nobodies from nowhere - an angry, difficult, contradictory and often self-destructive bunch who nevertheless believed they deserved to be heard.

“Two centuries later people all over the world are inspired by words they wrote in one room in a miserable slum town with no prospect of publication.”

Wasted includes strong language and sexual/drug references.

Wasted runs from Thursday to Saturday, October 20 to 22, at 7.45pm, with a 2.30pm matinee on Saturday. Visit wyp.org.uk or call 0113 2137700 to book tickets.

The Brontë Season has already included Northern Ballet’s dance version of the Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and a modern-day reimagining of Charlotte Brontë’s novel Villette.

New Perspectives has contributed Tiny Shoes, an audio drama which can be heard by people wandering around the Brontë Parsonage Museum or the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

There is also the digital project Know Your Place, which features stories of defiance, along with panel discussions and readings of Brontë letters.

Visit wyp.org.uk for further information.