Last Updated on March 15, 2025
Masterpiece’s “The Mirror and the Light” is Even Better than “Wolf Hall”
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On March 23rd, 2025, “The Mirror and the Light” premieres on PBS’ MASTERPIECE. A six-part series exploring Thomas Cromwell’s fragile position in Henry VIII’s court, it’s a masterful sequel to “Wolf Hall” (2015).
Both period dramas are adaptations of the epic trilogy—Wolf Hall (2010), Bring up the Bodies (2012), and The Mirror and the Light (2020)– by historical novelist Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall, the drama, adapts Mantel’s first two novels, and the drama The Mirror and the Light adapts Mantel’s third).
Below, Nancy West, author of of Masterpiece: America’s 50-Year-Old Love Affair with British Television Drama, shares her thoughts on the new series, which she calls “a return with interest.”
“Wolf Hall” aired ten years ago on MASTERPIECE. Chances are, if you saw it, you remember it despite the gap. A television event, “Wolf Hall” was widely anticipated because of Hilary Mantel’s award-winning novels and its superior cast.
Reviews were rapturous. Critics praised it as “riveting,” “intelligent,” and “surprisingly modern.” They gushed over the acting, especially the performances of Damian Lewis as Henry VIII (“heaps of kingly swagger”), Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn (“perfectly poised and complex”), and Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell (“hypnotic, understated but totally screen-owning”).
For those at MASTERPIECE, “Wolf Hall” felt like a return to the program’s earlier days, a time when unapologetically historical dramas like “Elizabeth R” and “I, Claudius” could still capture imaginations. Scoring fifty-four nominations, “Wolf Hall” won fourteen awards, including two BAFTAs (Best Drama series, Best Leading Actor), one Peabody Award, and one Golden Globe (Best Miniseries).
A lot has happened since 2015. Hilary Mantel died in September 2022, at the age of seventy; since then, she has been ambered in cultural memory as a “genius,” her trilogy a “feat of immersive storytelling and a monumental landmark in contemporary fiction.” In 2023, the era of Peak Television was widely pronounced to be over, brought on by an oversaturated market, the writers’ and actors’ strikes, and revenue loss. 2025 has witnessed the increasing power of dictators and would-be dictators.
In many ways, “The Mirror and the Light” speaks to these phenomena, from its lovingly faithful adaptation of Mantel’s third novel to its confident assertion of televisual quality to its shuddering relevance to contemporary politics.
If you’re worried that you don’t remember “Wolf Hall” well enough to appreciate its sequel, don’t be. Scriptwriter Peter Straughan and director Peter Kosminsky have wisely intercut flashbacks from “Wolf Hall” to help bring you up to date.
You’ll witness the bone-chilling execution of Anne Boleyn all over again along with the tender, heartbreaking scenes between the ousted Cardinal Wolsey (played by the refined, kindly Jonathan Pryce) and his loyal protégé, Cromwell. These intercuts aren’t there merely to jog our memories; they also underscore that Cromwell cannot escape his past, that the dirty deeds he helped arrange for Henry in “Wolf Hall” are now here to haunt him. And to prefigure his own Fate.
“The Mirror and the Light” retains the elements that made “Wolf Hall” masterful drama while correcting its flaws. It’s just as sumptuous, but gloriously free of the other’s hard-to-see cinematography. It retains much of the superior cast–Damian Lewis and Mark Rylance reprise their roles along with the wonderful Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Rafe, Cromwell’s faithful adopted son; Kate Phillips as a wary Jane Seymour; and Harry Melling as Thomas Wriothesley, the obsequious schemer Cromwell fatally underestimates—but features some dazzling new additions.
These include Lilit Lester as the bold but powerless Lady Mary; Alex Jennings as the ever-watchful Stephen Gardiner; and character actor Timothy Spall as the ugly, runty Duke of Norfolk, whom Cromwell also makes the mistake of underestimating. Straughan’s scripting for “The Mirror and the Light” is also better than that of “Wolf Hall,” just as intelligent (“How do you remake your reputation with the dead?” Cromwell asks at one point) but with punchier dialogue and an easier-to-follow storyline.
Its final episode, especially its closing minutes, may be the best piece of tragedy you’ll ever see on television.
“Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light” will air on MASTERPIECE Sunday nights from March 23 to April 20, 2025 at 9/8c, and will be available to stream on the PBS App, the PBS MASTERPIECE Prime Video Channel and PBS.org. Watch the trailer below.
Need to catch up? “Wolf Hall” (2015) is AVAILABLE to STREAM
Nancy West is a Professor of English at The University of Missouri, where she teaches courses in film studies, adaptation, British literature, and crime fiction. The author of three books and over twenty-five articles, she is currently working on two new monographs: a cultural history of charm in America called Beguiled: the Power of Charm in Modern America and a memoir called Moviemade Girl: A Daughter’s Memoir.
If you enjoyed this post, you’ll want to wander over to The Period Films List. Also see 10 PBS Masterpiece Locations to Visit and the Top 3 Masterpiece Performances.
