Wolf Hall - The Mirror and the Light

[virgocatlover]

Series 2 is confirmed to start Sunday 10th November.

Almost 10 years after the first series, I'm excited to see the third and final novel brought to life.

I agree - although if they had been making it 20 years ago John Thaw would have been equally good and looked the part. I saw him as Wolsey in Shakespeare's Henry VIII at Chichester a long time ago and he was so outstanding he got a standing ovation at the end of his last speech.

Oh, I don’t disagree about slight men being very intimidating.

It’s just that Mantel’s novels focus a lot of Cromwell’s stocky ‘bruiser’ physicality and pugnacious bearing. Not just him being a credible ex-soldier, or bringing a ‘low’ blacksmith’s son’s physique to Court among men trained in jousting etc, but even in terms of its impact on those who love him. Liz, when her father says he’s found her a husband, says ‘Well, you didn’t choose him for his looks’, Wolsey, himself ‘low-born’, takes up the insult of ‘butcher’s dog’ applied to TC and turns it into a longrunning series of affectionate jokes about his low birth and fighting qualities, and one of TC’s household (Rafe?), when TC is shocked by his appearance as painted by Holbein and says ‘I look like a murderer’ replies ‘Didn’t you know?’

Brideshead Revisited has been my favourite ever TV series for over 40 years, but Wolf Hall (both parts) might now be up there as joint top. I can't think of any higher praise.
Agree with everyone about how superb Rylance and Lewis were, and a mention for lovely Rafe last night.
The 18 (?) minute scene were they were questioning Cromwell was particularly good - including some laugh out loud moments, as Cromwell ran rings around them. A few old blokes sitting in a room talking, but still utterly compelling.....

Much as I enjoyed WH, I thought the scene where TC manhandled Reginald Pole as (un) believable as Ciaran ? Shifting bags of Cole in Small Things Like These.

Yes the cold realization that with Cromwell gone they would be at the front of the firing line, I think that was slowly dawning on Gardiner!

Cillian Murphy.

I think Mark Rylance plays Cromwell with intelligence, in his speech and the way he assesses situations. But what a snake Riche is, but then they all had to be snakes, Cromwell included, to survive and prosper. It certainly will be hard to find something to watch with the same enthusiasm.

That was so brilliant and rare as a drama that I’m tempted to ask the BBC to make more. There isn’t another broadcaster that would make this kind of tv this well https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/comments-feedback/#/Your%20comment

I'm a bit behind (just watched the episode where Jennert appears), so am not reading all the way to the end. Just wanted to say I love Mark R as Cromwell and, especially, Lydia Leonard as Lady Rochford. She was Virginia Woolf in Life in Squares, and a film called Archipelago. I think she's brilliant ,and underrated/not seen enough!
I also like Chapuys, but have to admit I'd forgotten Matthieu Amalric played him previously and can't bring to mind an image of him in the part.

Coming up soon - King and Conqueror about william I.

Gardiner is another person who was lucky to escape being executed. He was arrested and put in the tower during Edward's reign, but luckily for him, Mary then came into power and he served as Lord Chancellor.

Ooh! Excellent. I was just thinking that I hadn't seen a dramatisation of that era.

James Norton and Juliet Stevenson! 😍

It took me a long time to realise Wriothesley is Dudley Dursley!

I agree, and yet there's another thread on this board clamouring to get rid.

Lydia Leonard would have been a great Anne Boleyn.

I’ve started watching series one again.

I think she's great as Lady R. But as noted on this thread, she did play Anne Boleyn in the RSC stage version of Bring Up the Bodies and (I think) Wolf Hall.

One of our friends is a book conservator and one of the jobs he was working on recently were papers which included instructions to Sir Rafe Sadler regarding the imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots. He took a photo and sent it to me as he knew I’d be interested. I was absolutely staggered! He’s done the job for years so everything is quite commonplace to him but I’m continually astounded to see the things he works on. He was also working on Henry VIII’s prayer book which contained Anne Boleyn’s handwritten annotations.

That's incredible, I'd love to see those documents. Fascinating.

That's amazing, NeedWineNow. I did go to the treason exhibition at the National Archives and saw a few documents there, but can't imagine working with those sorts of things every day.

I’m still cross that a number of Anne Boleyn’s letters are in the Vatican archive, locked away. Surely they should be on display somewhere?!

What I can never get my head round is, in what, if any, sense, can these people be regarded as Christian? Can you be a Christian, and claim to follow the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, and still go along with beheading people, burning them at the stake (and, indeed, stretching them on the rack!). Not to mention accumulating vast amounts of personal wealth. Cos, after all, it is harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle... Did Henry, and indeed Cromwell, all of them, the bloody Cardinals too, really think they were going to Heaven when they died, after the lives they'd led? And that's before I even start on the Divine Right of Kings...

But then again, I'm very much a "I'd like to see the last King strangled with the guts of the last priest" kinda guy! 😀

They paid for prayers iirc?