Posted On
Written By GingersnapComments Off on In Loving Memory of Dame Hilary Mantel
Beloved Author
by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | September 23, 2022
We join readers around the world in mourning the loss of Author, Dame Hilary Mantel. We are grateful for her magnificent body of work and the award-winning historical fiction novels including, but not limited to, Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies and The Mirror and the Light. Without her words, her vision, Damian’s portrayal of Henry VIII would not be a critical hit as the regal King.
Posted On
Written By GingersnapComments Off on Underrated British TV Shows You Need To Watch
Wolf Hall
by Richard Chachowski | Looper | July 20, 2022
On the surface, one might immediately think that British television is very similar to any American TV program you can find on cable or currently streaming. However, as anyone who’s seen a decent amount of British and American series can tell you, the two couldn’t be further apart.
Known for their strong surrealistic elements, dry wit, and dramatically small number of episodes compared to American TV series, British TV shows are practically a genre unto themselves. Whether they encompass historical dramas, absurdist comedies, or sitcoms set in World War II, you know without question when you’re tuning into a TV show from across the pond, judging from its sense of humor and content alone.
Posted On
Written By GingersnapComments Off on Wolf Hall Voted Britain’s Favorite Historical Novel – Jan 20, 2020
Walter Scott Prize
by Eleanor Sharples | Daily Mail | January 20, 2020
When it comes to royal history, you can’t beat the Tudors for scandal and intrigue – though the Windsors are putting in a spirited effort.
So perhaps it should come as little surprise that Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall has been named as Britain’s favourite historical novel.
The Booker Prize-winning book was voted top in a poll, just months before Mantel’s eagerly-awaited conclusion to her Tudor trilogy – The Mirror and the Light – is released.
Wolf Hall, published in 2009, tells the story of Thomas Cromwell’s rise to power in the court of King Henry VIII and has sold 1,027,278 copies across all print editions.
Mantel’s second book in the saga, Bring Up the Bodies, was published in 2012 and also won the Booker Prize.
The novels were successfully adapted for TV with Claire Foy starring as Anne Boleyn, Damian Lewis as Henry VIII and Mark Rylance as Cromwell.
The Walter Scott Prize came up with a shortlist of ten novels to celebrate its tenth anniversary.
In the poll, second place went to Rosemary Sutcliff’s Roman adventure story The Eagle of the Ninth and third to Dorothy Dunnett’s The Game of Kings.
Read the rest of the original article at Daily Mail
Posted On
Written By GingersnapComments Off on Will Damian Be Reprising His Role as Henry VIII? – May 22, 2019
Hilary Mantel’s Conclusion to Wolf Hall Trilogy Set to be Released in 2020
by Arts & Entertainment Staff | BBC | May 22, 2019
Hilary Mantel’s next novel will be published on 5 March 2020, her publishers have announced.
The long-awaited book, the title of which was already known to be The Mirror and the Light, will complete the author’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy.
The first two novels in the trilogy – Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies – each won the Man Booker Prize.
In 2015, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies were adapted into a Bafta and Emmy award-winning television series, starring Mark Rylance as Cromwell and Damian Lewis as King Henry.
Posted On
Written By GingersnapComments Off on In the Realm of TV Entertainment, Royal Dramas Reign – Feb 28, 2019
Fans of Royal TV
by Matthew Gilbert | Boston Globe | February 28, 2019
I’m a sucker for the royal dramas. They marry history to warped family dynamics, and they’re generally quite pretty and transporting. They’re like “Succession,” HBO’s Murdoch family send-up, except with a majestic makeover, more servants, and at least one crown. There’s treachery, there are big castles, and at the center of it all there is the distorted psychology of a person who has inherited, not necessarily earned, a position closer to God than we mere mortals.
These shows are just what the Anglophile TV doctor ordered, a spot of tea as the cure for the uncountably many grim crime-solving dramas and superhero spectacles elsewhere on the schedule. For some viewers, royal dramas, like period novel adaptations, are too staid, too mired in the subtleties of their indirect exchanges to be entertaining. But for me, it’s fascinating to watch lives constrained by rigid social and dynastic rules, as messy human needs struggle against ancient policies. Things can get ugly around the palace, for sure, but most of the time the messes are hidden behind an elegant veneer of dignity.
Posted On
Written By GingersnapComments Off on Seven Historical TV Shows That Have Tourists Flocking to Britain – Aug 14, 2018
Wolf Hall
by Emma Mason | BBC History Magazine | August 14, 2018
Here, we look at seven historical TV dramas that are attracting tourists from Britain and beyond.
#5 Wolf Hall
The six-part BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies was a huge hit both on and off-screen. Starring Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell and Damian Lewis as King Henry VIII, the 2015 drama sent fans flocking to filming locations including Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, the real-life Wolf Hall; Chastleton House in Oxfordshire, which portrayed scenes from Cromwell’s childhood in Putney; and Montacute House in Somerset, which was used as the setting for Greenwich Palace – Henry VIII’s main London seat and the site of Anne Boleyn’s arrest in Wolf Hall.
Will Henry VIII be Emmy winner Damian Lewis’ first, great post-Nick Brody role? Directed by Peter Kosminsky and written by Peter Straughan (one half of the Oscar-nominated “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” duo), this six-part BBC drama adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s hit novels “Wolf Hall” and “Bring Up the Bodies” will broadcast stateside on PBS April 5.
Lewis plays the eighth Henry opposite top-shelf Shakespeare thespian Mark Rylance, playing the King’s ruthless counselor Thomas Cromwell. Claire Foy, Mark Gatiss, Charity Wakefield, Joanne Whalley and Jonathan Pryce, who was recently seen as a narcissistic asshole professor in Alex Ross Perry’s “Listen Up Philip,” head up the sprawling cast.
Should you have plans for Wednesday night, cancel them now. With its brilliant cast, sumptuous settings and jaw-dropping attention to detail, Wolf Hall — the BBC2 adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning Tudor novels — is the TV event of the year and must not be missed.
Of course, Henry VIII has been no stranger to our screens. The most notorious monarch in British history is also its an enduring TV star: the story of his six marriages as he strived for a male heir has gripped audiences again and again.
But Wolf Hall, a breathtaking series that uncovers the ferocious political battles at the heart of his court, may be his most magnificent portrayal yet.
Anne Boleyn schemes to be queen, the king dismantles the all-powerful monasteries and England’s enemies circle, waiting to destroy the nation.
To tell the story on such an epic scale requires a stellar cast . . . and Wolf Hall has it, headed by Homeland’s Damian Lewis as the king.
Posted On
Written By GingersnapComments Off on Wolf Hall: Bringing the Intrigue of the Tudor Court to Life – Jan 9, 2015
Wolf Hall: Damian Lewis and Mark Rylance on bringing the intrigue of the Tudor court to life
by Gerard Gilbert – The Independent – January 9, 2015
Source: BBC
BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s award-winning novels begins this month. It’s only early January but it seems that we might already have the best new British drama of 2015 about to air, although some readers may need to suppress a yawn when it’s added that this is a BBC costume drama led by a great Shakespearian actor. Safe as houses?
Not so. Writer Peter Straughan and director Peter Kosminsky’s engrossing adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Booker-winning novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, starring Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell and Damian Lewis as King Henry VIII, reinvigorates a genre grown comfortable in its award-winning ways, shaking it up in a manner not seen since I Claudius in the 1970s.