Wolf Hall

After the success of the BBC drama Wolf Hall, Mark Rylance and the director Peter Kosminsky join Kirsty Wark in the Chapel Royal of Saint Peter Ad Vincula, the Tower of London, to look back over the series.

More than 2 million say farewell to BBC2’s Wolf Hall
BBC2’s acclaimed Hilary Mantel adaptation Wolf Hall came to the end of its six-part run with 2.3 million viewers, a 10.2% share, from 9pm.

The drama, starring Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis, was BBC2’s biggest drama launch for a decade, since HBO co-production Rome, when it began with 3.9 million viewers (16.5%) last month.
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Its audience slipped by a million viewers the following week, to 2.9 million, but since then has remained fairly steady around the mid 2 million mark.

However, last night’s audience was also the lowest of its run, up against a Comic Relief-themed night of programmes on BBC1 and ITV’s The Brits.

Overall, it had an average overnight audience of 2.8 million across its entire run.

TALKING SHOP: Peter Kosminsky, director of the BBC's adaptation of Wolf Hall, tells C21 about the making of the critically acclaimed series that has just concluded its UK run and reflects on the current state of drama.

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.

Il est rare qu’un film soit à l’unisson du livre dont il est l’adaptation ; mais le phénomène est plus remarquable encore lorsqu’il est fidèle non seulement à l’esprit et à la lettre mais dans la qualité.

Wolf Hall, starring Mark Rylance, Damian Lewis and Claire Foy, went on to become BBC2’s biggest original drama series since, at least, 2002 with an average consolidated audience – including people who recorded it and watched it in the following days – of 4.4 million (15.8%) across its six episodes.

Wolf Hall’s director Peter Kosminsky said: “I grew up in a three channel era when you really could say that a significant proportion of the population was simultaneously watching the latest TV drama.

“It’s therefore such a thrill to learn today that Wolf Hall has broken BBC Two’s own ‘box office record’. Many millions of people made the choice to watch a difficult, challenging, highly political drama that only the BBC could make. I think that bodes well for the future.”