Critical popcorn

Now this sounds huge – and after years in the making, the BBC and Masterpiece PBS have given us that first-look at Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, based on the final novel in Hilary Mantel’s multi award-winning trilogy, as filming comes to a close.

The new pictures show Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell, Damian Lewis as King Henry VIII, Kate Phillips as Jane Seymour, Lilit Lesser as Princess Mary, Jonathan Pryce as Cardinal Wolsey, Harriet Walter as Lady Margaret Pole, Harry Melling as Thomas Wriothesley, Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Rafe Sadler, Timothy Spall as the Duke of Norfolk, Alex Jennings as Stephen Gardiner and Charlie Rowe as Gregory Cromwell!

Reuniting the creative team from the BAFTA and Golden Globe winning first series, Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light is directed by BAFTA award winner Peter Kosminsky, adapted for television by Academy award nominee Peter Straughan and produced by Colin Callender’s Playground and Company Pictures.

May, 1536. Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife, is 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?

Years in the making, Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light will trace the final four years of Cromwell’s life, completing his journey from self-made man to the most feared, influential figure of his time.

The six-part series will air on BBC One and iPlayer in the UK and further information will be announced in due course. Series one is available to watch on BBC iPlayer in the UK and on the PBS MASTERPIECE Prime Video Channel in the US and is available from Banijay Rights.