It’s been almost 10 months since Anne Boleyn (brilliant by Claire Foy) stood on a scaffold outside The Tower of London, but I can see her face – suddenly childlike, with both fear and pride in her eyes until they were covered up with a simple black blindfold – as clearly as if it was yesterday. The French executioner, courteously shoeless so the queen wouldn’t hear his approach, swung down his rude fat sword, striking her head off with a single blow.
Finally we saw Mark Rylance’s Thomas Cromwell walking, in slow motion, along a bright corridor, towards the open arms of a beaming Henry VIII (Damian Lewis). In some ways Cromwell had done it and won, though the look in his eyes – those eyes! – as he was embraced by the king didn’t say victory. More like the beginning of the end for him, too. Which, of course, it was. Hurry up Hilary (Mantel), scribble on, complete that trilogy.
Rylance, better known in theatres than living rooms until now, but on screen almost throughout the whole thing, was utterly mesmerising. Wolf Hall was packed with memorable performances, but his Cromwell – and, of course, Mantel’s via Peter Straughan, who somehow managed to turn her two weighty Booker-winners into six episodes of television – became one of the people of the year, 475 years after he died. It was an extraordinary portrayal of a man who had a profound effect on the history of this country, seen if not quite with sympathy then at least with a new understanding. And with new relevance: Thomas Cromwell, political fixer, the first spin doctor. If you saw Mark Rylance hanging around the corridors of Westminster, pulling his strings, sending people if not to The Tower then consigning them to political oblivion, it wouldn’t be a total surprise. Foy’s Anne, too, is not just forthright but thoroughly modern.
Yes, maybe it was a little dark at times – I mean literally, underlit, or over authentically lit (it would have been dark in the 16th century, unless it was outside in the daylight). But Thomas Cromwell needed his shadows, in which to lurk, plotting, manipulating, seeing and staying ahead of everyone else in the game.
As drama Wolf Hall was a bright light. There was little in the way of swashbuckling action; not much blood; Anne’s beheading, a bit of torture, one session on the rack, were rare moments of violence. And though Lewis was a splendidly swaggering and suitably thrusting Henry, most of the carnal moments were implied rather than observed. Wolf Hall was not The Tudors, in other words.
Instead, the thrill came from the lust and battles for power. This was quiet, measured, intelligent, serious, television, meticulous in its detail, but not humourless or po-faced. History, as seen by a novelist with an eye and an ear for a human story and a character, then condensed with sensitivity and brought back to life again – by director Peter Kosminsky – for the screen.
There has been loads of good drama this year, most of which I can’t remember. Wolf Hall still lingers and haunts.
