Wolf Hall - Season 2 - The Mirror & the Light

Beginning tomorrow on BBC i player.

Been looking forward to this for a long time. I have researchedvery deeply into the costume and portraiture of the Tudor period. One of my dissertations for Uni was on the portraits of Elizabeth I. Cromwell is a fascinating character.

Yes I suppose if Hilary Mantel was happy then that is what matters. The flattery shows how times change they all look like dangerous thugs to me ☹️

Spot on Maw.

luluaugust

I was so looking forward to watching it but I see the cast is very diverse, this is not fiction, which I find distracting as thanks to Holbein we know what they looked like and Thomas Wyatt is from Kent. The first book was brilliantly done and I have watched a few times, candlelight just right although I remember complaints at the time.

These may be “real”people ie historical characters, but it IS still fiction.
Even Holbein’s famous portrait is recognised as stylised - the equivalent in its day of “photoshopping”, heavily flattering and symbolic.
We don’t actually know what anybody looked like, portraits at that period were highly stylised, particularly of the “great and the good”. Remember how Oliver Cromwell wanted to be portrayed “warts and all” ?
We don’t know what was said, either, records of the time are biased by who wrote them and who they were intended for - as well as frequently impenetrable language.
Hilary Mantel wrote three great and memorable novels - as long as the series remains true to them, the directors and cast will have achieved their aim.

As Rafe Sadler in the BBC’s Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light. ◀️

We’ve met to discuss a rare occasion on which he has revisited a role: in Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, the BBC’s follow-up to its lavish and immaculate 2015 adaptation of the late Dame Hilary Mantel’s historical trilogy about the life of Thomas Cromwell.

The first series, six lauded episodes in which director Peter Kosminsky and screenwriter Peter Straughan somehow managed to cover the events of the first two Booker Prize-winning volumes in Mantel’s saga, ended with the execution of Anne Boleyn. This starts just afterwards.

‘We pick up literally 24 hours after season one, but we’ve all aged 10 years, which is funny,’ Brodie-Sangster says. Well, all the others have aged 10 years. He returns as Rafe Sadler, the protégé of Sir Mark Rylance’s Cromwell and, in this series, counsel to Damian Lewis’s volatile and babyish King Henry  VIII.

‘We knew we were making something really quite special,’ he says of the first series. This time felt like ‘a sort of family reunion – we had the same props department, the same costume department, same camera operators, same locations… And pretty much the same cast.’

A notable absentee was Tom Holland, who played the small role of Cromwell’s son Gregory in the first series. For what Brodie-Sangster calls ‘obvious reasons’, by which he means ‘becoming an A-list megastar in the intervening period’, Spider-Man couldn’t make it. ‘I think he probably would have liked to. We had good fun. We felt like “Cromwell’s boys”.’

There was an unspoken obligation to get it right, not least because Mantel died in 2022, a year before production started on the new series. ‘For history’s sake, for everyone’s sake who put in all the time and effort, and for Hilary’s sake,’ he says. ‘Of course, the saddest thing is that she won’t be able to watch it.’

(Taken from an article in the Telegraph today)

I was so looking forward to watching it but I see the cast is very diverse, this is not fiction, which I find distracting as thanks to Holbein we know what they looked like and Thomas Wyatt is from Kent. The first book was brilliantly done and I have watched a few times, candlelight just right although I remember complaints at the time.

I cried at the ending. Very poignant. Even though we all know what would happen to Cromwell it was still sad.

Years ago I went to see Hilary Mantel at a literary festival and she read us the last page of The Mirror And The Light, we were all mesmerised! She said she hadn't written the book yet (it took years, as we know), but that she'd always known what that last page would be.

If you haven’t read the books, Gingster, it would help you to get the essence of all the characters, what drove Cromwell himself and what ultimately led to his demise. It’s a wonderful production.

Do I need to watch the first series of Wolf Hall before I see the Mirror and the Light?

I always thought Gregory needed a clip round the ear!

There is the chilling comment his son Gregory makes, when Cromwell looks at his portrait, painted by Holbein.

Cromwell says, 'I fear Mark was right (Mark Smeaton). I once heard him say I looked like a murderer.'

Gregory says, 'Did you not know?'

'Wolf Hall', Hilary Mantel (2009)

'"So now get up." Felled, dazed, silent, he has fallen; knocked full length on the cobbles of the yard. His head turns sideways; his eyes are turned toward the gate, as if someone might arrive to help him out. One blow, properly placed, could kill him now.

Of course we have the amazing Holbein portrait to inspire us. Brooding, pugilistic Cromwell. Rose to high office from the most awful start in life.

“Get up, get up”
That first sentence in Wolf Hall, depicts Cromwell’s father shouting at the young lad having decked him (again).

HM said those words just came to her and she was off and running. Wonderful writer. Sadly missed (same year born as me 1954).

Juniewoonie

On this Sunday, I can’t wait! I love anything Tudor and anything with the wonderful Mark Rylance. I was lucky enough to see him several times in Shakespeare plays at the Globe, he was mesmerising!

eazybee

Many of us were influenced by Robert Bolt's play and film A Man for All Seasons portraying the conflict between Henry V111 and the saintly Thomas More. Hilary Mantel portrays a rather less saintly More, and a much less villainous Cromwell.

So looking forward to ^The Mirror and The Light.^

Totally agree!
I can’t wait for the new 3 parter, starting this Sunday night on BBC1.

I loved everything written by HM. It was an education hearing her speak about her books and her work with such clarity, without any of the 'ums', 'ems', 'ahm' and so on that are so often heard in other interviews.
I'm really looking forward to watching the last of the trilogy on Sunday too.

On this Sunday, I can’t wait! I love anything Tudor and anything with the wonderful Mark Rylance. I was lucky enough to see him several times in Shakespeare plays at the Globe, he was mesmerising!

Many of us were influenced by Robert Bolt's play and film A Man for All Seasons portraying the conflict between Henry V111 and the saintly Thomas More. Hilary Mantel portrays a rather less saintly More, and a much less villainous Cromwell.

So looking forward to The Mirror and The Light.

Deedaa I thought that the candlelight and semi darkness was wonderfully atmospheric in the first series

I agree. It helped me realise how easy it was for people to lurk in the shadows unseen (often this was Cromwell himself!)

I am so looking forward to this new series.

I am looking forward to this, although disappointed that the BBC has apparently decided to introduce more modern lighting. I thought that the candlelight and semi darkness was wonderfully atmospheric in the first series (and this from someone who is always complaining about the poor lighting in TV dramas) It's my least favourite of the books, I think because there's more talk than action and we know what the end will be, but I'm sure it will be worth watching.

Can't wait! Just a reminder that Mantel was writing fiction- no one really knows the shadowy figure of Thomas Cromwell who caused a great deal of anguish and suffering in order to serve his deranged King. For me the novel is about real politick and contains so many messages relevant to the times we now live in.

Yes, we lost a great writer in Mantel but her work lives on.
Mark Rylance is also a great actor.
I can feel sympathy for the fictional Cromwell, but not much for the real one.

I read them all until I got to the Mirror and the Light. Read half but just lost interest. Was reading so much about people I wasn’t interested in.

Thanks for the reminder. I'll also rewatch Wolf Hall.

Can't wait!

And thanks Greyduster for mentioning that programme. I'll definitely take a look.