BRONTË museum staff are excited about the upcoming TV movie about their favourite family.

This week they tweeted their delight after at least one of them was given a sneak preview of the 90-minute drama To Walk Invisible.

The tweet read: “Museum staff had very high expectations for #ToWalkInvisible @BBCOne. They were surpassed. It's a landmark production.”

The sneak preview came in advance of the official preview screening, held on Tuesday, December 13 in Hebden Bridge, and due to be attended by members of the production team.

Staff at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth were consulted by filmmakers to ensure the indoor sets built at a Manchester studio – which included the Parsonage’s rooms – were totally accurate.

Museum spokesman Rebecca Yorke said: “The museum staff were very closely involved with To Walk Invisible during its pre-production stage and we are all looking forward to seeing it on our screens over Christmas.

“We expect the film to have a positive effect on visitor numbers to both Haworth and the Parsonage.

“The museum is closed for essential conservation work during January, but our shop will be open daily and we have an exciting programme of weekend events on offer.”

To Walk Invisible, written by leading TV scriptwriter Sally Wainwright, was filmed during the 200th anniversary year of Charlotte Brontë’s birth.

The Brontë Society, which runs the museum, is organising five years of activities to celebrate the bicentennaries of all four Brontë siblings, including Anne, Emily and Branwell.

Tim Smith, the acting head of BBC Yorkshire, said To Walk Invisible was certain to be one of the best treats on TV this Christmas.

He said: “It was great that we were able to give some people in Yorkshire a chance to see the film before anyone else at the special screening in Hebden Bridge.

“The programme was made entirely in Yorkshire and written by Sally Wainwright. She has enjoyed a remarkable run of successful BBC dramas, set in her native Yorkshire.

“It’s fitting that she, a woman famous for writing brilliant stories full of believable characters, has turned her attention to the Bronte sisters. In many ways, she’s their modern-day successor.”

To Walk Invisible is billed as a realistic look at the lives of the siblings, who wrote famous novels like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, rather than presenting a chocolate box world.

Sally Wainwright said: “What’s interesting about the story to a contemporary audience is the domestic situation of the three Brontë sisters.

“The family are living with the alcoholic Branwell, who was very ill. It started in 1845 and goes through to 1848 when he died.

“The story is really about these three women living with an alcoholic brother and how they start trying to publish."

Both written and directed by multi-BAFTA winner Sally Wainwright, the one-off drama stars Wolf Hall actor Jonathan Pryce as the Rev Patrick Brontë and Chloe Pirrie, Finn Atkins, Charlie Murphy and Adam Nagaitis as his children.

To Walk Invisible will be screened on BBC1 on December 29 at 9pm.