Ah, someone who's been taken in by the Wolf Hall production. No,
there's no difference (except Shakespeare was GREAT) between Wolf Hall
& Shakespeare -- Mantel has done indeed much research, but Wolf Hall is
no more worthy of history than Shakespeare (though Shakespeare is great
which I'm afraid Wolf Hall is not!)...very little difference in various
doings between Shakespeare & Wolf Hall...though Shakespeare, well, is
great. Wolf Hall is not. Mildly amusing. A rather good response it is
to the history, but NOT of the quality of Shakespeare...
Timothy Swain
On Fri, May 8, 2015 at 8:48 AM, Robert Clair <[1]rcl...@elroberto.com>
wrote:
Some rather sweeping generalizations here.
I'm currently reading Wolf Hall. My knowledge of Tudor England is
not what it could be so the book often sends me Googling. I every
case I've encountered so far it seems that Ms. Mantel has done her
research.
As for adaptations - while I haven't seen it I'm given to understand
that The Tudors was done as a bit of a bodice ripper. The BBCA
production of Wolf Hall is most definitely not.
Aside from "Ah, Robin" played on lute over the opening, the music
falls in two categories: Any music that is mise en scene - that the
characters on screen would have heard - is real 16th C music. (There
is a shawm band.)A There is also a modern background score of which
the best I can say is that it it unobtrusive.
Beyond music, the BBC has gone to a staggering amount of work to get
the visuals correct. Check out some of the material here:
[2]http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02gfy02
<[3]http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02gfy02>
I've also just seen the excellent Royal Shakespeare Company
production. (Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies - 3 hours each on the
same day with a break for dinner.) Which brings up a question for
Ron: Does your antipathy to historical fiction extend to the
Shakespeare history plays? You could, if you like, argue that
Shakespeare was a better writer than Ms. Mantel and Mike Poulton
(who did the RSC adaptation) but is there any fundamental difference
in what they are doing?
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References
1. mailto:rcl...@elroberto.com
2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02gfy02
3. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02gfy02
4. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
