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Written By GingersnapComments Off on The 20 Best TV Shows Based on Books
Wolf Hall: A Marvel of Elegance and Emotion
by Staff | TVLine | March 30, 2023
What do these titles all have in common other than being highly-rated, successful shows? They and many more shows were adapted from bestselling novels within the last decade. Whether you love them or hate them, book-to-TV adaptations are here to stay. The TVLine team felt it was perfect to conjure up a list of the top TV programs based on books. We have rounded up 20 of the best shows from the last decade that were adapted from books:
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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.
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Henry and Cromwell
by Rebecca Jones | BBC News | May 20, 2021
Dame Hilary, 68, is a shrewd observer of political drama that spans the ages. “I think what my books have tried to show is that there is no life without politics,” she says.
She has been immersed in Tudor politics for more than 15 years, working on her Wolf Hall trilogy of historical novels about the plots and intrigues at the court of King Henry VIII and the rise and fall of his chief adviser Thomas Cromwell.
Dame Hilary has spent the past year writing the play of The Mirror and the Light herself. She says she wanted to “give it a go”.
But, perhaps surprisingly for a writer of 14 works of fiction and a memoir, she was not sure she could do it on her own.
“Although I’d written plays for radio… I’ve not written a whole stage play by myself. I felt my inexperience,” she admits. “I thought, ‘I need a collaborator.'”
Ben Miles, who starred as Cromwell in the Royal Shakespeare Company productions of Wolf Hall and its sequel Bring up the Bodies, suggested himself as “co-pilot” on the project.
The television adaptation of The Mirror and the Light is on its way too. “It is going ahead. It’s being written now, but delayed by Covid like everything else,” she says.
It is therefore unlikely to be on our screens before 2023. “It’s just a question of patience.” The previous BBC TV adaptation of the first two books – which was entitled Wolf Hall but brought together Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies – won two Bafta TV awards, and a Golden Globe.
She says she “would certainly hope” that Sir Mark Rylance, who played Cromwell in the BBC series and Damian Lewis, who appeared as Henry VIII, will be able to return to their roles, although “these are busy people with big schedules and it will all be a question of timing”.
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The Mirror and the Light: TV Adaptation Has Begun
by Gingersnap | damian-lewis.com | February 25, 2020
According to this February 25, 2020 article in the Radio Times,
“Wolf Hall director Peter Kosminsky has apparently already been sent the manuscript for Hilary Mantel’s long-awaited sequel The Mirror and the Light – and the work of adapting it for TV has begun. But Piers Wenger, the BBC’s Drama Controller, said he still had no idea when the drama will make it to our screens. At a press event in London, he commented: “I can’t say that now. Genuinely I think we are engaged in those conversations around getting [co-writer] Peter Straughan, Peter Kosminsky, getting the cast back together.”
The Times February 22, 2020 article had this to say when interviewing Hilary Mantel about her third and final installment of the book series,
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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
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The Mirror and The Light
Matthew Moore, Media Correspondent | David Sanderson, Arts Correspondent I The Times I May 25, 2019
The book is several years behind schedule but a television adaptation of the final instalment of Dame Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy is already under way.
The team behind the acclaimed BBC adaptations of the first two novels have confirmed that they are in the “active development” phase of bringing the finale to the small screen.
Mantel’s publisher revealed this week that The Mirror & the Light, the concluding part of her series about Thomas Cromwell, will go on sale next March. The author had said in April 2017 that she hoped to have it finished by early 2018.
Wolf Hall, the first book in the series, was published in 2009, followed three years later by Bring Up the Bodies. They were adapted for television by the BBC in 2015, starring Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell, Damian Lewis as Henry VIII and Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn. The six-part series was directed by Peter Kosminsky and written by Peter Straughan. Both men are involved with the follow-up, according to the production company Playground.
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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.
