Wolf Hall BBC2

[jean]

Perhaps the people who form their opinions based on popular films....

Perhaps I just don't know any of them!

But how could you not love someone who was a friend of Erasmus? And (Holbein again) who looked like this?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Perhaps I just don't know any of them!

But how could you not love someone who was a friend of Erasmus? And (Holbein again) who looked like this?

... by remembering that he burned people alive for disagreeing with his view of correct dogma

[jean]

But the theory is that in doing so, you would be saving their immortal souls.

I'm well aware this is a difficult one, and I've mentioned it already - but they were all doing it, whatever side they were on.

[Miles Coverdale]

Is it? I've heard this a lot recently, but it has surprised me because it's not my experience from the people I've talked to about him. It's a widely held view that he was a shameless apologist for the Tudors, and of course his attitude to heretics wasn't the sort of thing we approve of nowadays.

Well, it was a set text for O Level English Lit. for a number of years (which is where I first came across it), and there's also the film with Paul Scofield as Thomas More, which was succesful in its day.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

But the theory is that in doing so, you would be saving their immortal souls.

I'm well aware this is a difficult one, and I've mentioned it already - but they were all doing it, whatever side they were on.

i claim no moral overview except that i feel appalled and ashamed when contemplating the barbarity of British history; in modern times we have forsaken much of the violence and concentrate more on ambition mendacity and greed .... but we still imprison many innocents and refuse them release in the name of justice and her authority [Denning? Protection of sources; i.e. illegally obtained evidence]

we still live in a monarchy which many accept as a state of grace rather than the usurpation of the people that it is; and heaven is no help to you if you fall foul of the modern crown [whatever that is]

[jean]

They're talking about the gardens used for filming on Gardeners' Question Time at the moment.

[Anna]

But the theory is that in doing so, you would be saving their immortal souls.
I'm well aware this is a difficult one, and I've mentioned it already - but they were all doing it, whatever side they were on.

And not too long after we had "Bloody Mary" - she burnt 280 Protestants at the stake I believe. Do you think she was concerned with their immortal souls?

[Darkbloom]

I am enjoying Wolf Hall, but it does have the feel of something that has been cleaned up for overseas markets. It all looks visually alluring but that can be taken to a fault. You get no sense of the perpetual nightmare it must have been to live in a world where your life was in jeopardy for the smallest breach of orthodoxy, and one could be maimed on a whim. The More execution was very stylised. Admittedly, they must have been consciously avoiding cliches like the headsman in his mask and the thud of the axe, but it all felt too clinical to be real.

[Richard Tarleton]

The More execution was very stylised. Admittedly, they must have been consciously avoiding cliches like the headsman in his mask and the thud of the axe, but it all felt too clinical to be real.

Interesting that Mantel describes it (from the observer's [Cromwell's] point of view) in a bit more detail - I no longer have the book but something about the way the headless body slumped, she'd obviously given the matter some thought. "A Man for All Seasons" ended with the thud of the axe . I saw it on the big screen with my grandparents: my grandfather fell asleep early on in the film, as was his wont, and woke with a start as the axe came down.

[Darkbloom]

I am enjoying the TV version more than the book, but perhaps I should re-read it after this. I found her style a bit trying, all the 'he said' business got very confusing for many people. Usually any dramatisation ruins a book for me, but maybe it will work the other way this time.

[Darkbloom]

But the theory is that in doing so, you would be saving their immortal souls.

I'm well aware this is a difficult one, and I've mentioned it already - but they were all doing it, whatever side they were on.

That's always been how people have tried to apologise for the Inquisition - that they hoped that their victims, in their last moments of truly unimaginable agony in the flames, would mull over some miniscule point of religious doctrine and decide they were wrong all along. Some people also like to say that the Inquisition killed very few people - but they never mention the countless numbers that must have been tortured and terrified along the way.

[Richard Tarleton]

Another Holbeinesque scene this week - the one where Henry and Cromwell were discussing, I think, the income from various monasteries etc. - the backdrop to TC a perect freeze frame.

Any forum pedants care to comment on the use of the expression "fits the bill" in 1540 England? Someone, was it Jane Seymour, said "I'm sure I shall find something that fits the bill". Google suggests early 19thC America for the origin of this.

[mercia]

"fits the bill"

did you also hear "not within your remit" in the last episode, just after the bed fire ? (I'm assuming these phrases also appear in the book). It must be tricky writing dialogue in a historical novel - what language does one opt for ?

[jean]

Mantel does not attempt to reproduce the language of the period.

[mercia]

I wonder why so much trouble has been taken to get an authentic 'look' for the TV series.