BBC officially confirms Wolf Hall series 2 as Hilary Mantel announces final book in trilogy
Forthcoming novel The Mirror and the Light is set to continue the story of Thomas Cromwell, played in the BBC adaptation by Mark Rylance
The BBC will adapt Hilary Mantel's upcoming novel The Mirror and the Light as a sequel to 2015's Golden Globe-winning mini-series Wolf Hall, Director of Content Charlotte Moore has confirmed to Radio Times.
The hotly-anticipated historical novel will be published in March next year, and is the final part of the trilogy following Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the Bodies (2012).
Director Peter Kosminsky used the first two novels as the basis for his critically-acclaimed six-part Tudor drama, which starred Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell, Damian Lewis as King Henry VIII, Anton Lesser as Sir Thomas More and Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn.
The story follows Cromwell's rise to power and his mission to free the King of his second wife.
- 2017: Wolf Hall series 2 is at least two years away, says director
- Wolf Hall director Peter Kosminsky will be one of the first to read Hilary Mantel's third Thomas Cromwell novel
The Mirror and the Light will be published on 5th March 2020, eight years after the previous instalment. It is expected to cover the last few years of Cromwell's life, from Anne Boleyn's death to his own execution in 1540.
However, Moore was unable to confirm if Oscar-winning actor Rylance would return to the role of Thomas Cromwell for this final stretch.
A sequel to Wolf Hall has been on the cards for a while, but the project has been in limbo while Mantel worked on her manuscript.
In 2015, Kosminsky told RadioTimes.com: "The BBC and Company Pictures have an option on The Mirror and the Light, which is the next book. Hilary is writing it at the moment, and as you probably know she writes in an unusual way. She doesn’t write chronologically, she writes episodically. It’s a bit like making a documentary: you shoot a lot of scenes, and then work out how to put them all together in the cutting room.
“I don’t think she can give a very clear idea of when it’s going to be ready, but the sense we have is it’s some time in the first half of next year."
By 2017 he had updated his prediction, suggesting that it would be at least two years until he was able to make a sequel to Wolf Hall.
But now The Mirror and the Light is finally ready, it's time to get started on Wolf Hall 2...
Read the full interview with Charlotte Moore in Radio Times magazine, out now
