SINCE theatre bounced back, we have been bombarded with blockbuster musicals. I’m not complaining, but it is a relief to go to a West End theatre, the Gielgud, to see a play about a pivotal moment in British history: The Mirror and the Light, adapted by the book’s author, Hilary Mantel, and the actor Ben Miles.
I have sharp memories of the stage version of the first two novels in the trilogy, Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies, as I crawled up to Stratford-on-Avon to see them from a hospital bed seven years ago. They unforgettably charted Cromwell’s rise from blacksmith’s son to king’s seemingly indispensable counsellor. The new play starts in 1540 with an imprisoned Cromwell facing a trumped-up charge of treason and then tracks back four years to show his spectacular fall from grace.
This is narrative theatre at its best: even if you know the outline of the story, you want to know the whys and wherefores. ‘When you reach the top of the ladder, where do you go?’ Cromwell himself asks. You realise his descent was accelerated by his friendship with Mary Tudor, Henry VIII’s fiercely Catholic daughter, by his role in suppressing the Northern monasteries and, above all, by his reckless promotion of the detested Anna of Cleves as Henry’s fourth wife. ‘Make me happy, Crom,’ says Henry; when Cromwell fails to do that, his fate is sealed.
Denne historien er fra October 20, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra October 20, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds
