He, Cromwell: Mantel on page and screen, by Ali Bacon

Montacute House
aka Wolf Hall 

The media love to feed off each other. Over the winter the Daily Telegraph ran a news item every Monday (yes news, not features!) relating to Downton Abbey, and in the last few weeks I've notices something similar with the BBC's Wolf Hall, except for a small snag: viewing figures weren’t as brilliant as expected. Still, even that became news of the non-news kind (Wolf Hall fails to grip the nation) and they hedged their bets by finding a photo of Mark Rylance for the front page.

The Beeb of course cashes in with spin-off programmes and Rylance (surprise!) popped up right on cue on Desert Island Discs. Do I mind? 

Not in the least, because fickle creature that I am, I’d rather watch or listen to Mark Rylance than the sadly overexposed High Bonneville any day. Oh what a circus. The media have me down to a T.

But it’s still worth thinking about Wolf Hall on TV and its impact or lack of. For me the books do require patience and a willingness on the part of the reader to be immersed by thoughts as much as action, not to mention sorting out a pretty big cast of characters many of whom are called Thomas. (Such is the fate of the historical novelist – you can’t change the names!) I actually nearly gave up on Wolf Hall but once I was in there (for some reason the death of his wife that was the turning point for me) it was engrossing and compelling.  

But despite my enjoyment of it I didn’t get around to reading the sequel, Bring up the Bodies, until the TV series loomed into view, I think because I felt I already knew how it would feel as a read, and, as a friend pointed out, let’s face it we know what happens in the end. In fact I think I enjoyed it more than WH, although I still can’t believe that the ‘pronoun problem’ (digression alert) didn’t get sorted out.

"He, Cromwell"
(in case you were wondering)

He = Cromwell

Rant/digression! In Wolf Hall Mantel  opted for a style where ‘he’ nearly always referred to Cromwell even if someone else had been referred to more recently (there's an example and discussion here) . I for one found this unnecessarily confusing until I got used to it (and sometimes even then).  In BUTB either Mantel or her editors decided to give the reader a break by using ‘he, Cromwell’ where there was any ambiguity. Sorry, but this struck me as clunky in the extreme, and anyway why do we need a pronoun and a name, surely ‘Cromwell’ on its own would have been less jarring?  

So, going back to the TV version, complaints have mostly been that it’s too slow with too many long looks and ‘significant’ silences.  And these have come from both fans of the books and those who don’t know them at all.

But you see, there’s the thing.  As my writing teacher – who was an actress before she was a novelist – pointed out, of all the arts, only writing allows us inside people’s heads. Pace the artificiality of a soliloquy (or voice-over), actors reveal thoughts only through expression and action. Writers actually put these thoughts on the page. 

I actually think the BBC dramatization is very faithful to the subtle and detailed style of Mantel’s writing. It’s just that the director faces more limitations in giving us Cromwell’s inner thoughts. The Rylance eyebrows, however eloquent, have their limitations.

As an afterthought, and with apologies to Ali for the liberty, here's an Authors Electric review of Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies.

Photo credit: Montacute House by Paul McCoubrie on Flickr