Stage adaptation of Hilary Mantel novel already a success as Mark Rylance prepares to play Thomas Cromwell in BBC version
Normally a stage show only sells out well in advance of opening night when a film star is in the cast or it contains songs by a well-known band. But this month the Royal Shakespeare Company has a very different beast on its hands: a story of political intrigue in the Tudor court. And the ruthless machinations of Henry VIII are proving just as big a draw as any Hollywood A-lister.
Such is the Hilary Mantel effect. Most tickets for the first theatrical adaptations of the author's multi-award-winning books, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies , disappeared soon after going on sale in the spring.
Those who hoped to see the twin productions at the Swan theatre in Stratford-on-Avon this month, but were unlucky, will have to try again when they transfer, as expected, to London in the new year.
Writer Mike Poulton had to translate Mantel's dark and suspenseful historical fiction into a drama less than a year after the publication of the second book. Poulton, who also adapted The Canterbury Tales and Gregory Doran's production of Morte d'Arthur for the RSC, is promising some "very telling dances" to communicate the tensions of Mantel's story.
"We had to create a viable play, rather than just try to put the novel on its feet – because you can't do that," he said. "In a novel you take your time, you enjoy the pictures it creates in your mind, you go back and reread." The big difficulty for Poulton was editing the hefty story down without losing the clarity and detail. The writer, who has worked closely with Mantel, has spoken of the pain of choosing what to leave out. "The one thing you can't do is condense it and say we'll do broad brushstrokes. You can't ask an actor to play broad brushstrokes."
The screenwriter Peter Straughan has faced the same knotty problem. Straughan, who recently adapted John le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy for the cinema, has been commissioned by the BBC and America's Masterpiece Theatre to write a television series based on Wolf Hall. This production is to star Mark Rylance in the lead role of arch-strategist Thomas Cromwell. The BBC was so keen to secure Rylance that it has waited until he is free to take part, following his stint directing Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones in Much Ado About Nothing at the Old Vic. Casting of the other key roles for the six-part series is now going ahead, according to the BBC. Peter Kosminsky is due to direct, with filming beginning in Bruges in the spring.
Last year Mantel became the first British author to win the Man Booker prize twice for consecutive books. Wolf Hall, which takes its name from the family home of the Seymours, begins in England in 1527 when Henry VIII, king for nearly two decades, is seeking a male heir. Cromwell, a commoner, arrives at court determined to fix the king's problem and enact his own reforms. In Mantel's second book, Anne Boleyn has become queen, but the king is falling in love with Jane Seymour and Cromwell must now operate within an even more complex power structure.
Taking on the central role at the RSC is Ben Miles, best known to British audiences for Coupling and Cold Feet and current part in Sky Living's Dracula. The king will be played by Nathaniel Parker, star of the BBC's Inspector Lynley Mysteries. He also recently played Gordon Brown in the hit West End production of The Audience , opposite Helen Mirren.
Paul Jesson will play Cardinal Wolsey and Lucy Briers, daughter of the late Richard Briers, will be making her RSC debut as Catherine of Aragon. Lydia Leonard is playing Anne Boleyn. The plays, in repertoire from this month at the Swan, are directed by Jeremy Herrin.
Miles's performance will inevitably be compared with Rylance's. A former artistic director of the Globe theatre, Rylance is viewed as Britain's leading stage star following acclaim for his Tony and Olivier award-winning performance as Johnny "Rooster" Byron in Jerusalem. He last worked with Kosminsky on screen in the Bafta-winning drama The Government Inspector.
There is no clue as to which Cromwell casting Mantel prefers, but she is backing both adaptations. "Peter Straughan's scripts are a miracle of elegant compression," she said when the BBC project was announced last year, while an edition of Poulton's plays will be published in January, accompanied by substantial notes by Mantel on each of the principal characters.Mantel turned down a film deal in favour of a television series, or perhaps two, because it would better serve the "complexity of the subject matter". Straughan and Poulton may both have more work ahead of them, as Mantel is writing the last in her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, The Mirror and the Light.
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