Wolf Hall (TV series) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Wolf Hall
Genre	Historical drama
Based on	Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
Written by	Peter Straughan
Directed by	Peter Kosminsky
Starring	Mark Rylance Damian Lewis Claire Foy Bernard Hill Anton Lesser Mark Gatiss Mathieu Amalric Joanne Whalley Jonathan Pryce
Composer(s)	Original music by Debbie Wiseman Tudor music by Claire van Kampen
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	1
No. of episodes	6
Production
Executive producer(s)	Colin Callender
Producer(s)	Mark Pybus
Cinematography	Gavin Finney
Running time	60–65 minutes
Production company(s)	Company Pictures
Release
Original network	BBC Two BBC Two HD
Original release	21 January (2015-01-21) – 25 February 2015 (2015-02-25)

Wolf Hall is a British television serial first broadcast on BBC Two in January 2015. The six-part series is an adaptation of two of Hilary Mantel's novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, a fictionalised biography documenting the rapid rise to power of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII through to the death of Sir Thomas More, followed by Cromwell's success in freeing the king of his marriage to Anne Boleyn. Wolf Hall was first broadcast in April 2015 in the United States on PBS and in Australia on BBC First. It was reported in 2022 that a second series, covering the final novel in the trilogy, was in pre-production, with Mark Rylance and director Peter Kosminsky returning.

The series was a critical success and received eight nominations at the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards and three nominations at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards, winning for Best Miniseries or Television Film.

Plot

The series centres on the character of Thomas Cromwell, a lawyer who has risen from humble beginnings. The action opens at a point in Cromwell's career where his master, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, is about to fall from power because of his failure to secure a marriage annulment for King Henry VIII of England. It proceeds through Cromwell's own rise to political power, and ends with the execution of Anne Boleyn.

Cast

Principal

Supporting

Production

On 23 August 2012, BBC Two announced several new commissions, one of which was Wolf Hall. According to The Guardian £7 million was to be spent on the adaptation. BBC Two controller Janice Hadlow said it was "very fortunate to have the rights" to the two novels and called Wolf Hall "a great contemporary novel".

Peter Kosminsky, the director of the series, said: "This is a first for me. But it is an intensely political piece. It is about the politics of despotism, and how you function around an absolute ruler. I have a sense that Hilary Mantel wanted that immediacy. ... When I saw Peter Straughan's script, only a first draft, I couldn't believe what I was reading. It was the best draft I had ever seen. He had managed to distil 1,000 pages of the novels into six hours, using prose so sensitively. He's a theatre writer by trade."

The drama series features 102 characters and Kosminsky began casting the other parts in October 2013. Although originally set to film in Belgium, most of the filming took place on location at some of the finest British medieval and Tudor houses and buildings: Berkeley Castle, Gloucester Cathedral and Horton Court in Gloucestershire, Penshurst Place in Kent, Broughton Castle and Chastleton House in Oxfordshire, Barrington Court, Cothay Manor and Montacute House in Somerset, St Donat's Castle in the Vale of Glamorgan, and Great Chalfield Manor and Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire. The series was filmed from May to July 2014. The series, which was made in association with Masterpiece Entertainment and Playground Entertainment, consists of six episodes and was broadcast on BBC Two in the UK from 21 January 2015.

The Guardian speculated that the BBC's hiring of Kosminsky with Straughan showed they wanted "a darker and grittier take on British history" than more fanciful programmes such as The Tudors or The White Queen. Mantel called Straughan's scripts a "miracle of elegant compression and I believe with such a strong team the original material can only be enhanced".

Kosminsky's decision to film many of the interior scenes by candlelight led to the actors bumping into things, and fearing they might catch fire.

Wolf Hall was filmed in two locations in Kent: Dover Castle doubled for the Tower of London, and the Long Gallery, Tapestry Room, and Queen Elizabeth Room at Penshurst Place were used as specific rooms in Whitehall (York Place), which was Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII's residence. The Long Gallery doubled as Anne Boleyn's chamber. Some scenes were filmed at Stanway House in Gloucestershire.

The series' executive producer, Colin Callender, stated in February 2015 that he hoped that the BBC would commission an extension of the series based on the final novel in Mantel's trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, which was published in 2020. Callender said that lead performers Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis were "eager" to return.

A second series of Wolf Hall was confirmed on 27 May 2019.

Series episodes

International broadcast

• Australia: BBC First premiered the series on 11 April 2015 and it was watched by 46,000 viewers.
• United States: PBS broadcast the series on Masterpiece from 5 April 2015 to 10 May 2015. The series was subsequently licensed to Amazon Prime.
• Germany / France: Arte broadcast the series on 21 and 28 January 2016.

Accolades

For the 5th Critics' Choice Television Awards, the series received four nominations: Best Limited Series, Mark Rylance for Best Actor, Jonathan Pryce for Best Supporting Actor, and Claire Foy for Best Supporting Actress.