Paul Eksteen
Thomas Cromwell will surely die and brutally so. A victim of his own spectacular rise to prominence, his head will be hacked from his body in an amateurish execution.
Blunt force trauma invariably characterised the business end of 16th- century politics, but in the suffocating decorum of the royal courts, it was in the well-crafted darts of colourful character assassination where the real damage was done.
Wolf Hall, the first in a trilogy of best-sellers by Booker Prize- winning author, Hilary Mantel, reimagined this dark hand of the Tudor polity in delicious, studied detail. This BBC mini-series follows on from those acclaimed texts in the same spirit. It casts Cromwell (played with masterly understatement by Mark Rylance) in a subtle study of one man’s climb to power and his subsequent fall.
It all, ultimately, boils down to the simple matter of breeding. The son of a blacksmith from the wrong side of the tracks, Cromwell’s hold over first, the embattled Cardinal Wolsey (a wiley dose of vulnerability and cunning administered by Jonathan Pryce) and then later King Henry VIII himself, arouses unholy indignation among the higher-born clamouring for influence. It is in the bedroom melodrama of the lusty king (given brawny impudence by Damien Lewis), famous for his six wives, that the seeds of Cromwell’s horrendous fate are sown.
The impulsive Henry wants a son and, denied by nature, takes out his frustration on those closest to him. His Spanish queen is humiliated and put on trial, accused of lying about her virginity. His mistress, the haughty Anne Boleyn, is impatient for a crown that will ultimately cost her her head. Wolsey is on the run, with a certain panache it must be said, for failing to secure the king’s divorce from the pope who, as luck would have it, is being held hostage by the Roman emperor. In Germany, a religious revolution is in full swing and many servants of the crown, Cromwell included, will find themselves swept up in the fervour. Sensing blood, the vultures encircle, jostling for position.
Cromwell himself will grow fat on the carcasses.
Vice and ambition will perhaps forever remain the favoured themes employed by storytellers of all genres. They have certainly taken a lead role in a spate of historical dramas drawn from history’s key moments, and have then been embellished with ever more exotic lashings of sex and gory violence. Shows like Rome, Spartacus and The Tudors, based on the same period as Wolf Hall, traded profitably on exposing their pounds of nubile flesh.
Wolf Hall is cast from a rather more austere mould. The easy thrills of heaving bosoms and carnal pursuits are relegated to the shadows of rumour in favour of intimate portraiture. Perhaps a passing familiarity with the nuances of the Tudor period would aid in better understanding the unfolding drama, but under the direction of Peter Kosminsky (White Oleander, Wuthering Heights), Wolf Hall is more human study than history lesson. It’s a fascinating one too, seducing from the off. Cromwell is gambler, a poker face with prescience on a winning streak. But in the end, the old adage rings true. The house always wins.
Wolf Hall airs on BBC First (DStv channel 119) on Wednesdays at 8pm.