BBC reveals new Wolf Hall opening scenes
FIRST LOOK: Watch the opening scenes from Wolf Hall: The Mirror & The Light now ahead of the show’s debut on BBC One and BBC iPlayer this Sunday.
Picking up where the first season ended, the scenes feature Anne Boleyn’s execution and the wedding of King Henry VIII and Jane Seymour.
Reprising their roles from the first series are Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell, Damian Lewis as King Henry VIII, Jonathan Pryce as Cardinal Wolsey, Kate Phillips as Jane Seymour, Lilit Lesser as Princess Mary and Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Rafe Sadler. Joining the cast are Timothy Spall as the Duke of Norfolk, Harry Melling as Thomas Wriothesley, Harriet Walter as Lady Margaret Pole, Alex Jennings as Stephen Gardiner, Charlie Rowe as Gregory Cromwell, Tom Mothersdale as Richard Riche, Karim Kadjar as Eustache Chapuys, Maisie Richardson-Sellers as Bess Oughtred, Ellie de Lange as Jenneke, Hannah Khalique-Brown as Dorothea and Lydia Leonard as Jane Rochford.
Opening in May, 1536, Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife, and five of her coterie are dead. As the axe drops, Thomas Cromwell emerges from the bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, Jane Seymour.
Cromwell, a man with only his wits to rely on, has no great family to back him, and no private army. Navigating the moral complexities that accompany the exercise of power in this brutal and bloody time, Cromwell is caught between his desire to do what is right and his instinct to survive. But in the wake of Henry VIII having executed his queen, no one is safe.
Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. All of England lies at his feet, ripe for innovation and religious reform. But as fortune’s wheel turns, Cromwell’s enemies are gathering in the shadows.
The inevitable question remains: how long can anyone survive under Henry’s cruel and capricious gaze?
The new six-part series is a Playground and Company Pictures coproduction for the BBC and Masterpiece in the US. The series will be distributed internationally by Banijay Rights.
The series is directed by Peter Kosminsky, adapted by Peter Straughan and produced by Lisa Osborne. Executive producers are Noëlette Buckley, Peter Kosminsky, and Colin Callender, along with Lucy Richer for the BBC and Susanne Simpson for Masterpiece.
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