– Wolf Hall –
by Sarah Dempster | The Guardian | July 29, 2025
Sweeping dramas set in days of yore are everywhere. But which are some of the finest television ever created? And which are little more than an excuse to show naked backsides?
Inflate thy balloons and unsheathe thy Party Rings, for here is Chief of War (Apple TV+) to remind us of the joy of the scowling historical epic. Here too, almost, is Battle of Hastings belter King & Conqueror (BBC, August). And Spartacus: House of Ashur (Starz, this winter). Also in the period-specific pipeline are second series for Disney+’s brilliant Shogun and Amazon Prime’s terrible House of David.
Historical epics, it would not be unreasonable to say, are everywhere.
But which are the best and which should be catapulted, screaming, across a poorly rendered CGI battlefield? Given their abundance, some arbitrary judging criteria are clearly in order. Hence: no “fantasy” nonsense (ie Game of Thrones) and nothing set after the early 1800s, the latter on the grounds that a) there are too many of the sods and b) Julian “Downton Bloody Abbey” Fellowes has effectively tucked the era under his top hat and run off with it while honking like an overprivileged goose.
Let battle commenceth…
The Best
Wolf Hall (2015 and 2024)
An object lesson, here, in how to deliver prestige historical drama without recourse to bums or bombast. Instead, there are exquisitely layered performances (Damian Lewis, Jonathan Pryce), quiet, adult explorations of difficult, adult things (grief, ageing) and many, many candlelit silences into which Mark Rylance’s Thomas Cromwell glides, his expression, as always, that of a ferret saddened by developments in France. A monumental achievement, obviously, and in director Peter Kosminsksy and scriptwriter Peter Straughan’s hands, a near-perfect adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s three-piece masterpiece.
Read the rest of the original article at The Guardian