"Wolf Hall" last aired nine years ago, and in a similar period of time King Henry VIII "oversaw a break from Papal Rome, established an independent Church of England and remarried, twice", said Dan Einav in the Financial Times. This "superlative" drama, adapted from the final novel of the "Wolf Hall" trilogy by Hilary Mantel, is set in a "turbulent period" of the Tudor king's rule.
Apart from a "few tweaks to the ensemble", it has "lost none of what made it the BBC's crown jewel a decade ago", said the FT.
Picking up from the aftermath of Anne Boleyn's beheading, it sees Henry (a "mercurial and magnetic" Damian Lewis) marrying Jane Seymour in the hope of finally procuring a male heir. Some may feel this story is "less compelling", although, as a "demure" Jane Seymour, Kate Phillips "gives a convincing turn as a meek young rabbit slightly caught in the headlights", said Carol Midgley in The Times.
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Mark Rylance returns as Thomas Cromwell, newly appointed as lord privy seal: "magnificent – layered, tormented, nuanced and often sympathetic", his bad reputation notwithstanding, although "his old lady hairdo puts me in mind of Mavis Riley from 'Coronation Street' (the newsagent years)". There are "new faces" too, including Timothy Spall as the "furious, scowling" Duke of Norfolk, and Harriet Walter as Lady Margaret Pole.
So settle in for "six more rich hours of whispered conversations in candlelit, tapestry-draped rooms", said Chris Bennion in The Telegraph. Mantel's final novel covers Cromwell's final four years, from 1536, when he is "riding high as the king's right-hand man, Mr Fix-It, matchmaker, confidant". With Henry as a "hot-headed, paranoid, inadequate, capricious" ruler, who's faced with a rebellion that aims to use his daughter Mary to "bring England back to Rome", it falls to Cromwell to "make it all go away".
The "rich, textured performances" and Peter Kosminsky's "dynamic direction" avoid the "stuffiness often found in British period dramas", said the FT, and the script is "not only eloquent, but tinged with melancholy and laced with wit". The "politics of the court, state and beyond" unfold in "carefully worded exchanges in candlelit rooms", subtly "shaped by rumours and intimation as well as rhetoric and intimidation".
This style of storytelling can be challenging to the modern-day attention span more "used to the churn of streaming content", but "Wolf Hall" is not to be binged. Instead, it is "appointment weekly viewing, just as it was back in 2015".
"Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light" starts on BBC One at 9pm on Sunday 10 November
