– Rich, Textured Performances –
by Dan Einav | The Financial Times | November 5, 2024
Five out of Five Stars
King Henry VIII oversaw a break from Papal Rome, established an independent Church of England and remarried, twice, in roughly the same span of time it took for Wolf Hall to come back.
The superlative BBC drama, set during this turbulent period of Tudor rule, last aired in early 2015; before lead actor Mark Rylance — then best known for his stage work — won an Oscar, and before another epochal split from Europe could give the series a timely resonance. Very little has changed, however, as far as the show itself is concerned. A few tweaks to the ensemble aside, it has lost none of what made it the BBC’s crown jewel a decade ago.
The second series — adapted from The Mirror and the Light, the final novel in Hilary Mantel’s historical trilogy — picks up in the immediate aftermath of the previous episode, which concluded with the execution of Anne Boleyn. Not one for sentimentality, Henry (Damian Lewis, mercurial and magnetic as the capricious king) celebrates the severing of his second wife’s head by tying the knot with Jane Seymour, whom he hopes will deliver a male heir.
Until then, his reign seems unstable; vulnerable to challenges from his estranged eldest, Mary — a devout Catholic who refuses to recognise her father as the head of the church — and his cousin, Reginald Pole, who calls for a pro-Roman uprising against the king. Having orchestrated the demise of the out-of-favour Anne, the king’s newly appointed lord privy seal Thomas Cromwell (Rylance) is now tasked with nullifying these familial threats.
Of all the great anti-heroes who defined the Peak TV era, few were quite as complex and captivating as the blacksmith’s son-turned-king’s confidant. Admired by some for his quiet gravitas and erudition, distrusted by others for his guile and ambition, he’s described here by one of his many detractors as having “no face or truth”. Rylance’s portrayal of Cromwell continues to be reveal the depths beneath the inscrutable exterior. In the opening episodes he is both calculating and compassionate towards Mary, serves Henry with loyalty and self-interest, and confronts his complicity in the crown’s cruelty.
Rylance conveys so much in Cromwell’s reticence, yet these internal conflicts are also manifested as imagined conversations between him and his beloved former master, the late Cardinal Wolsey, played, as before, by Jonathan Pryce. Among those also returning are Lilit Lesser and Kate Phillips as the strong-willed Mary and the callow queen Jane respectively.
Rich, textured performances are complemented by Peter Kosminsky’s dynamic direction, which does away with the stuffiness often found in British period dramas, and a script that’s not only eloquent, but tinged with melancholy and laced with wit.
Here, the politics of the court, state and beyond plays out in carefully worded exchanges in candlelit rooms; it is shaped by rumours and intimation as well as rhetoric and intimidation. Such storytelling can challenge attention spans used to the churn of streaming content. Wolf Hall is decidedly not bingeable. But it is appointment weekly viewing, just as it was back in 2015.
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