We consider the controversies surrounding BBC Two's sumptuous Wolf Hall adaptation, feat. Damian Lewis, Mark Rylance and Claire Foy...
2015’s roster of prestige dramas is particularly dense, but the BBC’s take on Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall might just have already claimed its crown as the most controversial. It arrived freighted with the baggage always attached to adaptations of acclaimed novels, and further burdened by some thorny controversies all of its own. Mantel’s spirited attack on philosopher-saint Thomas More and equally fervent defence of his nemesis and her hero, Thomas Cromwell, was always bound to ignite debate. That, of course, is before we even touch on the subject of that rogue c-word and the choice to film night-time scenes by candlelight. We want accuracy, but only on our terms; when it jars with our perceptions of the past, out it goes.
Despite its name, Wolf Hall is...
2015’s roster of prestige dramas is particularly dense, but the BBC’s take on Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall might just have already claimed its crown as the most controversial. It arrived freighted with the baggage always attached to adaptations of acclaimed novels, and further burdened by some thorny controversies all of its own. Mantel’s spirited attack on philosopher-saint Thomas More and equally fervent defence of his nemesis and her hero, Thomas Cromwell, was always bound to ignite debate. That, of course, is before we even touch on the subject of that rogue c-word and the choice to film night-time scenes by candlelight. We want accuracy, but only on our terms; when it jars with our perceptions of the past, out it goes.
Despite its name, Wolf Hall is...
- 3/3/2015
- by louisamellor
- Den of Geek
Professor David Starkey has branded Wolf Hall a "deliberate perversion" of history.
The BBC Two programme combines Hilary Mantel's novel of the same name and sequel Bringing Up the Bodies.
Speaking to Radio 5 Live, Starkey said that he had not read the books nor seen the drama because he is "someone who actually knows what happens" and is a "massive believer in fact".
"Wolf Hall is a wonderful, magnificent fiction," he noted. "There is a difference between fact and fiction. The supposition has got to be controlled.
"If you're a novelist, you can imagine whatever you want. I gather Hilary Mantel has imagined this wonderful tender experience of Thomas Cromwell losing wife and children and you have a great deal of emoting.
"This is total fiction. There is not a scrap of evidence for it at all. So the thing that's used to create Cromwell as a sympathetic character is totally fiction.
The BBC Two programme combines Hilary Mantel's novel of the same name and sequel Bringing Up the Bodies.
Speaking to Radio 5 Live, Starkey said that he had not read the books nor seen the drama because he is "someone who actually knows what happens" and is a "massive believer in fact".
"Wolf Hall is a wonderful, magnificent fiction," he noted. "There is a difference between fact and fiction. The supposition has got to be controlled.
"If you're a novelist, you can imagine whatever you want. I gather Hilary Mantel has imagined this wonderful tender experience of Thomas Cromwell losing wife and children and you have a great deal of emoting.
"This is total fiction. There is not a scrap of evidence for it at all. So the thing that's used to create Cromwell as a sympathetic character is totally fiction.
- 1/26/2015
- Digital Spy
The sixth series of The Apprentice gets under way, while Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman are lost for words in a piece of pure poetry
The Apprentice | iPlayer
The Song of Lunch | iPlayer
The Genius of British Art | 4Od
PhoneShop | 4Od
Modern Family | Sky1
Wedding House | C4
The sixth series of The Apprentice at last kicked off after months waiting for Alan Sugar to stop pootling around in his baronial robes trying to help fish Britain out of the toilet and return to the important job of looking cross on television. Flanked by wry uncle Nick and new scrutineer Karren Brady, here he was, glaring at the latest intake of pathologically immodest ninnies – the girls with their hyperalert rictuses and ironed hair, the boys affecting a steely tousledness borrowed from the suit pages of the Next catalogue. His lordship unveiled an unwieldy joke he had prepared earlier. "On paper you all look very good…...
The Apprentice | iPlayer
The Song of Lunch | iPlayer
The Genius of British Art | 4Od
PhoneShop | 4Od
Modern Family | Sky1
Wedding House | C4
The sixth series of The Apprentice at last kicked off after months waiting for Alan Sugar to stop pootling around in his baronial robes trying to help fish Britain out of the toilet and return to the important job of looking cross on television. Flanked by wry uncle Nick and new scrutineer Karren Brady, here he was, glaring at the latest intake of pathologically immodest ninnies – the girls with their hyperalert rictuses and ironed hair, the boys affecting a steely tousledness borrowed from the suit pages of the Next catalogue. His lordship unveiled an unwieldy joke he had prepared earlier. "On paper you all look very good…...
- 10/9/2010
- by Phil Hogan
- The Guardian - Film News
London -- Channel 4 is putting troubled children at the heart of its spring/summer season, with a hard-hitting strand, "Britain's Forgotten Children," focusing on what happens when children are raised by the state.
The season will include actress Samantha Morton's directorial debut, "The Unloved," a semi-autobiographical drama about what happens to a young girl growing up in a children's home. While in "Adopt Me," the broadcaster will examine why a quarter of the 4,000 children up for adoption every year fail to find a home.
In "The Homecoming," a film for the "Cutting Edge" documentaries strand, journalist Rachel Roberts explores the repercussions for children of being in care, while Rageh Omaar also will report on the subject in a special edition of "Dispatches."
Drama highlights for the season include "Endgame," a feature-length political thriller starring William Hurt, inspired by the secret talks between Afrikaners and Anc exiles that took place...
The season will include actress Samantha Morton's directorial debut, "The Unloved," a semi-autobiographical drama about what happens to a young girl growing up in a children's home. While in "Adopt Me," the broadcaster will examine why a quarter of the 4,000 children up for adoption every year fail to find a home.
In "The Homecoming," a film for the "Cutting Edge" documentaries strand, journalist Rachel Roberts explores the repercussions for children of being in care, while Rageh Omaar also will report on the subject in a special edition of "Dispatches."
Drama highlights for the season include "Endgame," a feature-length political thriller starring William Hurt, inspired by the secret talks between Afrikaners and Anc exiles that took place...
- 3/25/2009
- by By Mimi Turner
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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