The TV Column

Wolf Hall historical drama debuts on AETN

Wolf Hall stars Mark Rylance (shown) as Thomas Cromwell and Damian Lewis as Henry VIII.
Wolf Hall stars Mark Rylance (shown) as Thomas Cromwell and Damian Lewis as Henry VIII.

I've written in recent days about the deluge of quality programs arriving tonight. Make sure you've erased all those old episodes of Bones and NCIS so you'll have room on your DVR.

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Wolf Hall stars Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn.

Things get really crowded at 9 p.m. when the supernatural drama Salem returns to WGN (the witch war begins); NBC debuts the action thriller American Odyssey; Mad Men begins its swan song on AMC; and Wolf Hall (see below) arrives on PBS.

Whew.

Not the least among the new arrivals is the latest epic series from Mark Burnett and Roma Downey. A.D. The Bible Continues premieres at 8 p.m. today on NBC. You can read all about that offering in today's TV Week insert.

For me, the best and brightest is the latest from PBS and Masterpiece.

Wolf Hall. Masterpiece's latest outstanding period drama raises the curtain at 9 p.m. today on AETN and will run for six episodes. It surpasses all the hype.

Wolf Hall is labeled "a historical drama for a modern audience" and follows the meteoric rise in the Tudor court of the brilliant and enigmatic Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance, the forthcoming Bridge of Spies), from his lowly beginnings as a blacksmith's son to Henry VIII's closest adviser.

Damian Lewis, best known as Nicholas Brody in Showtime's Homeland, plays a refreshingly multi-dimensional Henry.

Paula Kerger, PBS president and chief executive officer, was in Arkansas recently and sang the praises of Wolf Hall.

"I'll tell you what was interesting to me in it," Kerger said. "It's about Cromwell. I remember when I was a kid and watching PBS. I know I watched other shows, but this was with my family watching The Six Wives of Henry VIII. So, [Wolf Hall] for me feels like sort of full circle.

"The look of it is fascinating. It's from the same production team that did [the HBO miniseries] John Adams, and the attention to detail is fantastic. They did a lot of the filming in places where Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn would have stood. Some of the scenes were lit by candlelight."

Boleyn is portrayed by Claire Foy (Little Dorrit), who gives a bravura performance as the calculating and ambitious woman who became the object of Henry's lust and, by holding out, became wife No. 2 after Catherine of Aragon.

Those who know their British history will tell you it does not end well for Anne. Her demise comes in the final episode.

(For the record, Henry seemed to have a thing for Catherines and Annes. His wives were, in order, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr.)

Another key figure in the early episodes is Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, played by Jonathan Pryce (Cranford). It was Wolsey, the powerful Lord Chancellor, who first recognized Cromwell's potential.

Due to his inability to arrange an annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine, Wolsey fell from favor. Cromwell, however, survived and prospered.

The miniseries is an adaptation of Hilary Mantel's Booker Prize-winning novels Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the Bodies (2012). Wolf Hall is told from Cromwell's perspective and follows the complex maneuverings and backroom dealings of the pragmatic and accomplished power broker.

Modern audiences familiar with House of Cards will recognize the political intrigue at work here. Wolf Hall shines light on the Tudor middle class and the internal struggles England faced on the brink of Reformation.

PBS tells us, "At the center of it all is Cromwell, navigating the moral complexities that accompany the exercise of power, trapped between his desire to do what is right and his instinct to survive."

Also in the cast are Bernard Hill (Five Days) as the king's military commander, the Duke of Norfolk; Anton Lesser (Endeavour) as author and Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas More; Mark Gatiss (Sherlock) as Cromwell's rival adviser Stephen Gardiner; and Joanne Whalley (The Borgias) as Catherine of Aragon.

In an interview with The Guardian, director Peter Kosminsky said about the series, "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."

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Lewis spoke about playing Henry.

"He is a changeable, volatile, very likable on many levels, brilliant, passionate man," Lewis said, "who became increasingly fixated and paranoid on a single issue and a lot of people died as a result of it. So his trajectory is extraordinary.

"He's a supporting role in this series. But it gives us an opportunity to explore these other characters who we all know lay murkily in the background of Henry's story."

The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:

mstorey@arkansasonline.com

Style on 04/05/2015

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