![]() ![]() The attribution of villainy and heroism also challenges conventional biography. ![]() The complex interactions of some 70 characters (seven of them annoyingly called Thomas) are always sharply delineated, but the audience is left to decide whether lurid allegations against Anne Boleyn of adultery and even incest were slander by her murderous husband or held some truth in her desperate attempts to save her life by conceiving an heir. Elegantly compressing 1,246 pages of print into just over five and a half hours of stage time, the productions compellingly combine absolute dramatic clarity with tantalising historical ambiguity. ![]() The extraordinary enthusiasm for these books across page, stage and screen is partly due to the inherent dramatic power of the narratives: Henry VIII is probably the only figure, apart from Jesus Christ, of whom even the most truanting British schoolchild will have heard.Įven so, Mantel and dramatist Mike Poulton and director Jeremy Herrin bring to the familiar tale of doomed wives and religious convulsion a thrilling originality of psychology and storytelling. ![]()
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