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A Tudor Soap Opera
Jul. 31st, 2023 10:40 pmAug 2022
Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel – 4th Estate, 2019
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Historians and soap opera writers share an obsession with storytelling, which is why history as soap opera is a fertile ground for novelists and playwrights. Nowhere is this more evident than in the life and times of Henry VIII and his court. Robert Bolt's play A Man for All Seasons depicts one episode of this history – the downfall of Thomas More – in crude but dramatic terms as a saintly man brought down by his calculating evil nemesis, Thomas Cromwell. But of course real history is much more complicated, knotty and ambiguous than that. Hilary Mantel clearly understood this and it is to her credit that her portrayal of Cromwell and the circles he moved in is consistent with the historical facts while retaining a compelling soap operatic drive.
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