By Lacy Baugher for Drama on November 30th, 2014

‘Wolf Hall’ to Premiere on Masterpiece in April 2015

Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell. (Photo: Courtesy of Ed Miller/Playground and Company Pictures for Masterpiece/BBC)
Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell. (Photo: Courtesy of Ed Miller/Playground and Company Pictures for Masterpiece/BBC)
Wolf Hall, the highly anticipated adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize winning-pair of Tudor-era novels, has an official American airdate! The drama will debut as part of the upcoming Spring schedule on PBS’s Masterpiece, and will premiere on April 5.

The six-part series will follow the meteoric rise of Thomas Cromwell, from lowly blacksmith’s son to chief advisor to King Henry VIII. Among other things, Cromwell was a chief architect of the English Reformation, helping to engineer the annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon, in order to allow the king to marry his mistress Anne Boleyn. He was also instrumental in Anne’s later fall from grace, negotiated Henry VIII’s fourth marriage to Anne of Cleves and instituted widespread (and extensive) religious reforms.

Mantel’s take on Cromwell is particularly interesting as historically he has been presented as an unlikeable or manipulative figure. 

The drama stars Tony and Olivier Award-winning actor Mark Rylance as Cromwell, bolstered by a top notch cast, featuring Homeland’s Damian Lewis as Henry VIII, Upstairs Downstairs’ Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn, Call the Midwife’s Jessica Raine as Jane Rochford,  Cranford’s Jonathan Pryce as Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, The Borgias’ Joanne Whalley as Queen Katherine of Aragon, Endeavour’s Anton Lesser as Sir Thomas More and  Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss as King Henry’s secretary (and Bishop of Winchester) Stephen Gardiner who, incidentally, would go on to become Lord Chancellor of England under Mary Tudor.

Mantel won the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Wolf Hall, and repeated as a victor in 2012 with its sequel Bring Up the Bodies. A third novel in this Cromwell-focused trilogy – currently titled The Mirror and the Light – is tentatively slated to be published in 2015. It’s unclear whether the TV adaptation of Wolf Hall will deal with Cromwell’s dramatic fall from grace or whether some sort of sequel will be made after the final novel is published.

We haven’t seen a trailer of any sort from Wolf Hall as yet, though if you watch the interactive version of the latest BBC drama trailer you can see a scene featuring Lewis as King Henry. (Spoiler alert: It’s awesome.) You *can* get your first look at Rylance as Cromwell in this promotional shot: 

markrylancecromwellfullphoto.jpg

The drama is set to screen in the UK at some point in early 2015, and it’s nice to know that the US won’t be terribly far behind.

Are you looking forward to Wolf Hall? 

By Lacy Baugher for Drama on November 30th, 2014
Lacy Baugher

Lacy's love of British TV is embarrassingly extensive, but primarily centers around evangelizing all things Doctor Who, and watching as many period dramas as possible.

Digital media type by day, she also has a fairly useless degree in British medieval literature, and dearly loves to talk about dream poetry, liminality, and the medieval religious vision. (Sadly, that opportunity presents itself very infrequently.) York apologist, Ninth Doctor enthusiast, and unabashed Ravenclaw. Say hi on Threads or Blue Sky at @LacyMB. 

Explore More

More to Love from Telly Visions