Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light on Masterpiece

Wolf Hall is a British television serial first broadcast on BBC Two in January 2015. The six-part series is an adaptation of two of Hilary Mantel's novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, a fictionalised biography documenting the rapid rise to power of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII through to the death of Sir Thomas More, followed by Cromwell's success in freeing the king of his marriage to Anne Boleyn. Wolf Hall was first broadcast in April 2015 in the United States on PBS and in Australia on BBC First. It was reported in 2022 that a second series, covering the final novel in the trilogy, was in pre-production, with Mark Rylance and director Peter Kosminsky returning. The series was a critical success and received eight nominations at the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards and three nominations at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards, winning for Best Miniseries or Television Film. Plot The series centres on the character of Thomas Cromwell, a lawyer who has risen from humble beginnings. The action opens at a point in Cromwell's career where his master, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, is about to fall from power because of his failure to secure a marriage annulment for King Henry VIII of England. It proceeds through Cromwell's own rise to political power, and ends with the execution of Anne Boleyn. Cast