Does wolf hall get better?

[Cantonet]

I've just watched the first episode of the first series in preparation for the new series.
I feel like I'm watching a deeply repressive, utterly grim play. Is this series a slow burner? Or shall I give up watching now?

"unlike a Shakespeare play which are usually fictional characters"

Those famous fictional characters Julius Caesar, Antony, Cleopatra, Henry V, Richard III, and of course Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn etc etc

I mean of course they are fictionalised, but so are Mantel's Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, etc.

I'm of the view that a modern actor is never going to exactly inhabit the form of the historical character they are portraying, whether that is their hair colour, skin colour, accent, hair cut - we choose what we think is "authentic" and what we think isn't, none of those characters would sound or speak anything like they are doing on screen but we don't care about that, for example.

Mantel would have known that she wasn’t influential enough not to be cancelled.

Woke how? It's skin colour, what is so woke about that? It's the society we live in.
I have to say the script and costumes are so wonderful the colour of the actor's skin is neither here or there. I can't see why anyone is so bothered about it.

I mean of course they are fictionalised, but so are Mantel's Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, etc.

They are, but Mantel prided herself on following the sources very closely. Obviously private thoughts and conversations are fictional, but they are based on known facts as much as is possible.

The idea that a member of the landed gentry in Tudor England would have one white and one black sister is nonsensical. Especially as the sources describe Jane as being extremely pale. In a production which strives for historical accuracy, right down to characters having napkins placed over their shoulders while dining, it does jar a bit.

Because it's incredibly jarring when you see it and you know for sure that, for example, Cromwell's son's wife was not actually of mixed race. There were a handful of black people in the UK at the time and none of them were at court.
The production has gone to such lengths for historical accuracy in costumes, scenery, lighting etc so it is extremely noticeable when they miscast black people in roles where it is known that the actual person was white.
It's woke because it's miscasting actors simply to make a point. It may be the society we live in now, but it certainly wasn't at that time.

It wasn't jarring for me, in fact I barley registered it until I saw people getting hey up over it. Like I said I was more interested in the script and the storyline.

*barely not barley

Yes, tell yourself that with no proof whatsoever that she did not mean what she said. I personally would apply Occam's Razor.

I adore it, but I love historical dramas.

It gets much more depressing.

Much, much worse.

I don't think it will end well for poor Mark Rylance

Not really looking forward to the last episode!

I'm sure that , if they can stretch to so many non white actors, they can manage a happy ending for TC

But can you understand that they are all actors and pretty much nothing you see is historically accurate?
None of them are wearing clothes riddled with lice, have missing teeth, haven't bathed in months.

I wonder why race of the actors is the thing you choose to select as the thing that bothers you? Can you think why that might be?

All this is is a purity test.
Do you notice that Jane seymour and her sister are different racially?
No- well done, you pass
Yes- you're a racist.
If one is interested in Black History, the whole thing is ridiculous. Yes, there were Black people around in the court. But it's misleading to suggest that they rose to high ranks in society.

Give over with the passive aggressive insinuations.

Other than the missing teeth, and I'm not quite sure what you want to do about that other than force Mark Rylance to have a few extractions, this production is actually very historically accurate. Mantel researched her books in great detail, and the production reflects that. Great care was taken to have the sets and costumes as historically accurate as possible. These things are never perfect of course, but to say that "pretty much nothing you see is historically accurate" is just wrong.

Having actors with a full set of teeth simply isn't on the same level as portraying the King's sister in law as black.

So I’ve been deleted for saying the post by @unclemtty was passive aggressive and mealy mouthed? Or was there something else that someone found offensive? Ridiculous.

Black actors sullying the purity of English history is the third rail here. I suppose we can no longer allow women to act in shakespeare’s plays now since they weren’t permitted to in Elizabethan times. This will run up against mumsnet’s hatred of cross dressers and men invading women’s spaces or identifying as trans but ah, well, we must be historically accurate.

Well, yes.
Otherwise why to go to all the bother of accuracy in costume, behaviour etc.
But then, of course, I am racist for even seeing it.

I suppose we can no longer allow women to act in shakespeare’s plays now since they weren’t permitted to in Elizabethan times.

That's a ridiculous comparison and I suspect you know it.

No. I don’t think its ridiculous.I wouldn’t bother posting it if I did.

Surely it’s perfectly possible to register it without it being some fearsome problem that inhibits your ability to enter the fictional world onscreen? I mean, sure I notice, in the same way as I think ‘Oh, there’s Timothy Spall as Bernard Hill’ or ‘Is that Ely cathedral?’ Or, in historical dramas from previous decades, ‘Gosh, Jane Seymour is wearing very 70s eye-makeup’. But it’s not some kind of giant issue.

It either bothers you or it doesn't.
The day when they remake Zulu with White actors playing zulu warriors (or some such) is the day I'll agree with you.
And I don't find it a 'fearsome problem' thanks. As I've said upthread, I'm enjoying it despite the colour blind casting.
And I do think there is no point in attempting any form of historical accuracy at the same time as colour blind casting.

It's not a 'fearsome problem', whatever that is.

But it is annoying and jarring.

It would be one thing if this were intended as a kind of fantasy interpretation of the period, but as I said above, 'Wolf Hall' strives for historical accuracy. Yet we're meant to think that the King of England had a black sister in law and nobody thought that even slightly worthy of comment? And that mixed race families were the norm in deepest Wiltshire in the late medieval age?

But no one intends you to think that, any more than they intend you to think it’s odd no one says ‘Norfolk, you look completely different!’ this season, or that the historical founding fathers of the US were the races that the actors of Hamilton are.

The recasting of Norfolk was unavoidable. I have never heard of 'Hamilton' so can't comment.

Casting a black actress as a character who is known to have been white was a choice.

You seem to be agreeing with me that the idea that a black woman would have been a member of a white gentry Tudor family is entirely unrealistic, but we're just meant to accept it.