The creators behind the widely acclaimed BBC show Wolf Hall almost pulled the plug on a second season after the author’s sudden death.
The popular historic drama hailed as a ‘masterpiece’ by fans is based on the trilogy by late writer Hilary Mantel about the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance), advisor to King Henry VIII (Damian Lewis) in the Tudor court.
The first season, adapted from the first two novels, came out in 2015 to critical acclaim after landing a Golden Globe for best limited series.
And the wheels to create the sequel, The Mirror and The Light, started turning when Mantel published the final novel in 2020.
In September 2022, however, the celebrated author unexpectedly died of a stroke aged 70 which almost put a halt to the entire production.
As director Peter Kosminsky told The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the US release on PBS’ Masterpiece, there were serious discussions to cancel the sequel in its entirety out of respect to the author.
But the creative team finally agreed to continue as a memorial to Mantel instead.
‘If it hadn’t been for the support of the BBC and Masterpiece at that point, when our morale was pretty low, I think there might’ve been a different outcome,’ Kosminsky explained.
At the time he shared his devastation in a touching tribute on BBC Radio 4.
He said: ‘It’s a terrific shock.
‘I can’t help feeling that a light has gone out in our rather benighted country. Hilary Mantel was an expert, she spent five years researching Cromwell and the Tudor period before she even put pen to paper. She was erudite on a range of subjects.
‘For those who knew her, for her husband Gerald, and all those who adored her books, we’re not going to see her like again in our lifetimes.’
And it wasn’t the only significant hurdle the show faced. There was also a serious lack of money to put behind the project.
‘Six weeks from production, we were shutting down. There was no way around. We were so far adrift on the money and we had cut and cut and cut,’ the director continued.
After Kominsky and an executive producer agreed to majorly reduce their portion of the fees, writer Peter Straughan and lead star Rylance also took ‘significant salary cuts’.
Even then he admitted that the second season ‘was five times harder [than the first] because the money was so tight.’
‘The costs in England for production over the years have escalated astronomically,’ producer Colin Callender shared.
He added that the rise of the general cost of living, interest rates and ‘crippling’ insurance have all contributed to financial woes across the board.
‘It’s a problem across the whole of the British industry and it’s particularly affecting top-end British drama,’ he said.
Earlier this year, Kosminsky even submitted written evidence to a parliamentary committee investigating the state of British high-end TV to say that they ‘would not succeed’ in making the show today.
‘We had shepherded the series through a 10-year development process. In the end, it was necessary for us to work for very little to get the show made,’ he explained.
His solution is for 5% of the money raised by UK-based streaming subscriptions to go towards a cultural fund that allows British TV to continue competing on the world stage.
The second season aired in the UK at the end of last year, securing an impressive 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
‘Even amid slower and meandering scenes, rehashings and even a few cast replacements, Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light is seamless… Additionally, Rylance and Lewis’ performances are astounding,’ Variety wrote in a recent review.
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‘Lewis’s contained, preternaturally magnetic performance is as sure an embodiment as you could imagine of the force of a powerful monarch,’ the New York Times praised.
And Vogue waxed lyrical in its reviews, adding: ‘[Mark] Rylance is one of our greatest living actors, and the emotions he holds in his face are manifold.
‘His delivery of Mantel’s dialogue—modern, intelligent, bristling with implication and subterfuge—is mesmerizingly clear.’
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Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light is available to watch on BBC iPlayer now.
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