What to watch after Wolf Hall

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2015/feb/26/what-to-watch-after-wolf-hall

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BBC2’s historical drama Wolf Hall has achieved something only the finest TV dramas can: it has left us bereft. The dramatisation of Hilary Mantel’s novels owned Wednesday nights in January and February, and now it’s gone. What now?

First, if you were too emotionally wrung out after the final credits to notice Wolf Hall: the Inside Story immediately afterwards on BBC4, check that out on iPlayer. Actor Mark Rylance and director Peter Kosminsky tell Kirsty Wark how they did it, discussing the show’s subtle subtexts, the modern parallels with the court of Henry VIII, and whether the TV and stage versions of Mantel’s books will have an impact on the final book in the trilogy, the forthcoming The Mirror and the Light. The intelligence behind Rylance’s performance blazes through.

After that? Try these …

More machinations

Several modern TV classics share a central theme with Wolf Hall: power struggles, conducted subtly and then suddenly not so subtly between damaged, monomaniacal men, while the women in their lives do all they can to wield whatever influence they have. The obvious one, for its central motif of a man with no power who gradually seizes it, is House of Cards – season three of the American remake hits Netflix tomorrow. Then there is Game of Thrones, where behind the bare breasts and bloodshed, complex grudges and allegiances power the drama and mirror real-life politics. Season four is out now on DVD ahead of the fifth run in April.

But the one you really want – and yes, this is the basically the answer to all “which TV show should I watch?” questions – is The Sopranos. Tony Soprano is schemer and ruler rolled into one, with other characters clinging on around him. Like Wolf Hall, it’s darkly funny, and like Wolf Hall, it simply oozes quality: that all-too-rare feeling that every line of the script and every move of the camera is a tiny masterstroke, freighted with meaning by people who know precisely what they’re doing? It’s here. The ultimate essential box set.

More Mark Rylance

Your first port of call to see further screen work by the great thespian should be The Government Inspector, a 2005 drama written and directed for Channel 4 by Kosminsky. As doomed former UN weapons inspector David Kelly, a Bafta-winning Rylance has that familiar powerful stillness, with oceans of thought and emotion betrayed by the tiniest gestures. But Kelly, of course, was the victim of a storm of circumstance and scheming, rather than its orchestrator: a negative image of Thomas Cromwell.

Frustratingly, The Government Inspector is only available on DVD, although you get two more slabs of Kosminsky excellence, The Project and Britz, into the bargain. Alternatively, if your ears simply long for a quick fix of Rylance’s smoothly whispering tones, head to iPlayer for the gorgeous CBeebies cartoon Bing, in which he slightly improbably voices Flop, the sidekick/carer of the titular curious bunny. If you imagine Henry VIII’s only concerns were picnics, flowers and welly boots, and Cromwell were some sort of semi-magical knitted panda thing, the parallels are uncanny.

Real royals

It is about the Tudors’ predecessors, the Plantagenets, and its cut-price dramatic interludes look silly next to Wolf Hall’s high art. But Channel 5’s documentary series Britain’s Bloodiest Dynasty is underrated. Presenter Dan Jones does a good job of carving a clear, compelling narrative from the reigns of Henry II and his successors, bringing out the brutal drama that ensues when despots give their caprices full rein. All four episodes are on Demand 5.

Light relief

Loving the whole breeches-and-beheading thing, but keen to see something that doesn’t require holding your breath and concentrating fiercely for 60 minutes at a time? Kick off your shoes, put your brain in a drawer and head for The Tudors, the slapstick boff-romp version of Henry VIII’s reign. With Jonathan Rhys Meyers as a thin, young, much too sexy monarch, this Henry behaves as if he must have sex with a different lady-in-waiting every episode, or his throne will explode. Wolf Hall’s restrained power gave us a lot of exquisite eye acting. The Tudors prefers buttock acting. All four silly seasons are on Netflix and Amazon Prime.