Skip to footer

Hilary Mantel's 'Wolf Hall' and 'Bring Up the Bodies' come to the stage

Mantel's novels will be performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Hilary Mantel recently won the Man Booker Prize for her novel 'Bring Up the Bodies.'
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

Hilary Mantel’s award-winning novels “Wolf Hall” and “Bring Up the Bodies” have been adapted into play form and will be performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Writer Mike Poulton adapted the novels into a two-part theatrical adaptation and the company will perform the shows at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare. The productions will premiere in December 2013 and run until March of the next year and will be directed by Jeremy Herrin, who is currently serving as associate director at the Royal Court Theatre in London.

“Hilary Mantel has been working alongside us to find a genuine theatrical language for these plays, even promising to include material she left out of the books in order to do so,” RSC artistic director Gregory Doran said, according to The Bookseller. “The gripping tale of Thomas Cromwell’s rise to power under Henry VII, and the King’s infatuation with Anne Boleyn, has captivated readers in their thousands, and I am thrilled to bring them to our stages.”

Doran told the Guardian he knows exactly who he wants to take on the role of Thomas Cromwell, protagonist of Mantel’s novels and adviser to King Henry VIII.

“I wish I could tell you,” he said. 

In discussing the new stage adaptation, Mantel recalled going to Stratford alone at age 15 and seeing Shakespeare plays.

“It was a shaping experience,” the writer said in an interview with the Guardian. “So it really is a dream come true for me to have the opportunity to see the RSC present my plays… I don't say that lightly.” 

The RSC’s new season will also include a production of “Richard II” starring “Doctor Who” actor David Tennant.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Hilary Mantel's 'Wolf Hall' and 'Bring Up the Bodies' come to the stage
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2013/0124/Hilary-Mantel-s-Wolf-Hall-and-Bring-Up-the-Bodies-come-to-the-stage
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe