Wolf Hall BBC2

[Richard Tarleton]

Sorry for the spoiler!

Don't worry jean - Radio Times has been offering spoilers for the past 2-3 weeks. Interview with Claire Foy, talking about the "weeping extras" at the execution scene, and re next week, "her eyes glittering as she mounts the scaffold on a miserable, grey, wet and windy day"..... - sorry, , er,

Draco I wonder how you'd feel about someone like me who has read the first book but has felt no inclination to read the second (or third)....In hindsight I think they had the makings of very good screenplays.

PS I've enjoyed previous Mantels, e.g. A Place of Greater Safety, set in the French Revolution, which also features a number of, er, toppings.

[Flosshilde]

PS I've enjoyed previous Mantels, e.g. A Place of Greater Safety, set in the French Revolution, which also features a number of, er, toppings.

I started to read that, & gave up after a couple of hundred pages (with several hundred still to go ...). I thought it tedious, with the amount of research she'd done all too evident, which is why I was rather sceptical about the awards for Wolf Hall and Bring up the bodies. Then the latter was the choice of the book group I belong to, & I thought it was riveting, so read Wolf Hall. I'm very much looking forward to reading the third book when it comes out - I'll probably read the first two again before I read it, to get the whole sweep of the story in one go.

[jayne lee wilson]

I jut feel very sorry for anyone who has not read the book.
And did Mantel use the 'c' word? I certainly don't remember her doing so.

Please don't feel sorry for me, Draco...
Can't I just enjoy Wolf Hall The TV Series in my blissed-out ignorance? (Or not quite - background supplied courtesy wiki)...

(anyway, count your blessings or we'll get...Bring Up the Bodies - now a major motion picture starring Russell Crowe, with Brad Pitt as Henry VIII)

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Bring Up the Bodies - now a major motion picture starring Russell Crowe, with Brad Pitt as Henry VIII

i could go for that as long as Saskia Reeves is in it!

[mercia]

I wonder if this Holbein doc is worth a look before Monday. We don't like Waldemar though do we.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04xtmvf/reinventing-the-royals-1-crisis

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I wonder if this Holbein doc is worth a look before Monday. We don't like Waldemar though do we.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...oyals-1-crisis

This "we" does - and that Holbein docu shows him at his not inconsiderable best. (A much better way to spend an hour than the associated costume drama, methinks.)

EDIT: But I think your link isn't to the programme you referred to, mercs?!

This one, perhaps:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0513ghb

[mercia]

oops thanks. Not paying attention.

[jean]

I thought the programme was excellent - I posted about it here, a thread about why we got so much about the Tudors.

I said there But we only get big stories and personalities with the Tudors. Waldemar Januszczak suggested in his recent programme on Holbein that this is because he made them look so human.

He also thought that Hilary Mantel must be wrong about Cromwell because Holbein made him look so very unpleasant, but then spoilt it rather by saying that he invented Henry's image.

[Ferretfancy]

I thought the programme was excellent - I posted about it here, a thread about why we got so much about the Tudors.

I said there But we only get big stories and personalities with the Tudors. Waldemar Januszczak suggested in his recent programme on Holbein that this is because he made them look so human.

He also thought that Hilary Mantel must be wrong about Cromwell because Holbein made him look so very unpleasant, but then spoilt it rather by saying that he invented Henry's image.

It was interesting that in the scene when Holbein was painting Cromwell's portrait, we never got a glimpse of what was on the canvas, which was just as well. Firstly, of course Mark Rylance doesn't in the least resemble it. Secondly there is the fact that almost without exception on TV and in films, portraits as part of the drama always look phoney. A good example is the nude portrait of Kate Winslett, superbly executed by Leonardo da Caprio in the state room on the Titanic. It's just as well that it went to the bottom!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

the nude portrait of Kate Winslett ... it went to the bottom!

[eighthobstruction]

Put Waldemar in Tudor period dress and he would make a fabulous court jester (a kind of jovial Rumblestiltkin)....it must be a real chuckle making his programmes....(esp when he breaks into a jog away from camera)

[Miles Coverdale]

They're noted recusants, aren't they? So the Catholics won't like it any more than they'll like her portrayal of St Thomas More.

Most people's perception of Thomas More, probably gathered from Robert Bolt's hagiographical A Man for All Seasons, is that he was the next best thing to a living saint. However, if you read some of his correspondence with the Bible translator George Joye, a rather different character emerges. He could be quite the potty-mouth if he wanted to.

[Miles Coverdale]

I would give the music researcher credit for choosing appropriate music, which cannot always be said of programmes about the Tudors. The music being sung while they were at mass in last night's episose was, I think, from Thomas Ashwell's Mass Jesu Christe, possibly the Christ Church recording.

[jean]

Most people's perception of Thomas More, probably gathered from Robert Bolt's hagiographical A Man for All Seasons, is that he was the next best thing to a living saint.

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.

However, if you read some of his correspondence with the Bible translator George Joye, a rather different character emerges. He could be quite the potty-mouth if he wanted to.

And if you read his Dialogue of Comfort, written when he was imprisoned in the Tower, perhaps another character again?

[french frank]

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.

Perhaps the people who form their opinions based on popular films don't normally take the matters any further?

Many other people hold an alternative view because they also have 'alternative views' (nothing to be read into the 'quotes') on Richard III.