What Could Be the Next ‘Wolf Hall’? Creator Reveals Plans for Future

Part of the appeal and popularity of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall novels is the fact that it puts Thomas Cromwell center stage in a new light. The titan of the Tudor era was one of the instrumental figures in the English Reformation and the separation of the Church of England from the Catholic church. Wolf Hall imagines what he was really like behind his steely facade. The Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light series finale aired on Sunday, April 27, on PBS, bringing the Wolf Hall onscreen story to an end as Cromwell’s story ended. Now, showrunner and director Peter Kosminsky has his eye on another piece of English history that’s not often depicted onscreen, one with a direct connection to Wolf Hall.

Wolf Hall was always going to end with Cromwell’s death; both the Mantel book trilogy and the PBS Masterpiece adaptation track his rise and fall in the court of King Henry VIII. The Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis-led drama is done, but we wondered if Kosminsky had any interest in a spinoff series based on one of Wolf Hall‘s surviving characters — one that, like Cromwell, isn’t often the main topic of discussion from the Tudor era. When asked what his next Wolf Hall could be, Kosminsky said he’s actually looking about 100 years into the future.

Kosminsky’s “not sure about” one singular figure he’s interested in bringing to life on the small screen, but “there’s an era that’s interesting to me,” he told TV Insider. “About 100 years later in England, we had Charles I, who was not a very good king, and he was beheaded. We had a period of about 20 years in England when there was what was known as the Commonwealth. It was a period of parliamentary rule.”

While Kosminsky is more interested in this era of parliamentary rule than he is one particular person from it, part of the intrigue is the fact that a Cromwell descendant was a leader of this era. This man could bridge the gap between Wolf Hall and this potential new story.

“Oliver Cromwell, who was not a royal person at all, ruled the country with a big parliamentary army called the Roundheads,” Kosminsky noted. “Now interestingly, Oliver Cromwell was a descendant of the Thomas Cromwell from Wolf Hall. He was a descendant of his nephew. For 20 years, the monarchy was kicked out and quite a revolutionary approach obtained in England. And then Oliver Cromwell died and the whole thing went bottoms up. The king came back, we had Charles II, and England was in this weird space where a whole raft of new ideas had come in, but they were swiftly being swept away as the old order returned. I think that’s an interesting period that I’d be intrigued to explore. But beyond that, I won’t say more really.”

It seems the story of the Cromwell legacy might still have some pages left unturned. Would you like to see this era of English history brought to life by the creator of Wolf Hall and The Mirror and the Light? Let us know in the comments section, below.

Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, Streaming on PBS Passport