Wolf Hall & Bring Up the Bodies: The Stage Adaptation
ISBN10: 1250064171
ISBN13: 9781250064172
Paperback
272 Pages
$16.00
CA$18.50
Hilary Mantel's Thomas Cromwell novels are the most formidable literary achievements of recent times, both recipients of the Man Booker Prize. Adapted by Mike Poulton, the plays were premiered by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre, Straford-upon-Avon, in December 2013, directed by Jeremy Herrin.
This edition contains a substantial set of notes by Hilary Mantel on each of the principal characters, offering a unique insight into the plays and an invaluable resource to any theater companies wishing to stage them.
Wolf Hall begins in England in 1527. Henry has been King for almost twenty years and is desperate for a male heir; but Cardinal Wolsey cannot deliver the divorce he craves. Yet for a man with the right talents, this crisis could be an opportunity. Thomas Cromwell is a commoner who has risen in Wolsey's household—and he will stop at nothing to secure the King's desires and advance his own ambitions.
In Bring Up the Bodies, the volatile Anne Boleyn is now Queen, her career seemingly entwined with that of Cromwell. But when the King begins to fall in love with plain Jane Seymour, the ever-pragmatic Cromwell must negotiate within an increasingly perilous Court to satisfy Henry, defend the nation, and above all, to secure his own rise in the world.
Reviews
Praise for Wolf Hall & Bring Up the Bodies: The Stage Adaptation
"A fiercely intelligent adaptation."—Variety
"Hilary Mantel's best-selling shadow-steeped and highly nuanced novels about Cromwell, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, have been reincarnated by the Royal Shakespeare Company into a bright, bustling political soap opera that condenses more than a thousand pages of fiction into two plays and a brisk six hours of stage time. You might say that Ms. Mantel's books, which seem to take place within a shroud of fog and darkness, have been brought into the open daylight."—Ben Brantley, The New York Times
Reviews from Goodreads
BOOK EXCERPTS
Read an Excerpt
Adapting Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies
Mike Poulton
Over three years ago I was asked if it might be possible to adapt Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall for the stage. At the time of asking, Bring Up the...