Wolf Hall is now a joyless exercise in virtue-tainment

The new season of Wolf Hall on BBC One is the latest contribution to an ill-defined yet ever-present genre of TV and film we tend to think of as being ‘woke’.

Everyone has a fuzzy sense of what constitutes ‘woke’ art and entertainment. These are the shows, films and productions that sacrifice entertainment at the altar of po-faced morality. They embody, through their themes and production values, the preoccupations and attitudes of our supposed betters – especially those around environmentalism, the representation of minorities and gender identity. These productions tend to be critically acclaimed but treated with suspicion, if not downright hostility, by the public at large.

We think a better name for this phenomenon than ‘woke’ is ‘virtue-tainment’. The purpose of virtue-tainment is not entertainment. Rather, these cultural products are part of the ‘work’ that we need to ‘do’ in order to be accepted as a good person by the in-crowd. They are a medium through which elite virtues are portrayed and signalled. Hence, virtue-tainment. Virtue-tainment is not made to be enjoyed. It’s made to be undertaken as a solemn penance, like communion or veganism. You can enjoy vegan sausages, but if you do, you’re doing veganism wrong.

Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light is the latest piece of entertainment to be offered up as a sacrifice to the Gods of virtue. Nearly 10 years after the first instalment, Wolf Hall, in 2015, the new series has used colourblind casting for the first time, generating predictable controversy, especially from traditionalists who demand realism in fiction.

The adaptation of the final book in historian Hillary Mantel’s trilogy has cast Egyptian-born Amir El-Masry as Thomas Wyatt (after he was played by Jack Lowden in the first series). Lady Margery Seymour is played by Sarah Priddy, who is from a mixed-heritage British-African family.

Wolf Hall is a historical docu-drama, a fictionalised biography of Thomas Cromwell, the chief minister to King Henry VIII. Mantel’s impeccable intellectual credentials and the BBC’s no-expense-spared cast and production values means it is ideally suited to satisfy the English obsession with costume drama in general and the Tudors in particular.

Director Peter Kosminsky has defended the choice to employ colourblind casting, saying: ‘We wanted the very best actors who are available for the show… and we chose the best actors who auditioned for the roles.’ His logic is unarguable. The best actors were chosen because they were the best actors.

Mantel herself, who died in 2022, argued in favour of diverse casting in 2021: ‘As soon as you move to stage or the screen… you’re in the realm of representation. I think we have to take on board the new thinking.’ Why the new thinking is better than the old, why ‘representation’ ends debate or why we are obliged to accept it uncritically, are discreetly passed over.

The most vocal criticism of the casting choices came from the journalist – and descendant of Thomas Wyatt – Petronella Wyatt in the Telegraph. While defending historically set series like Bridgerton employing diverse casts, she accused Wolf Hall of being ‘dishonest’, ‘fake history driven by an on-screen representation agenda’ and ‘cultural appropriation in an era when white actors are no longer asked to play Othello’. Ouch.

Both sides are missing the point here. Wyatt’s protestations will undoubtedly find sympathy with traditionalists, historians and much of the public. But her criticism does not get to the heart of the issue, which is as much artistic as it is historical. The producers’ evasive advocacy of colourblind casting is no better. They fail to provide a persuasive justification of the choices they are making.

Colourblind casting is a legitimate artistic choice. But it means something very specific. It rejects the superficial, skin-deep ‘likeness’ between an actor and a character. Instead, the performers represent how we choose to imagine characters in other, less obvious ways – perhaps they have an energy or a manner that brings something revealing to their portrayal of a character. It is not a ‘realist’ technique, where we may reasonably expect performers to physically resemble the characters they are portraying. Artistically, it communicates to an audience that, for this production, outward appearances are not important and that the performers stand for something other than how they look, with all the expectations that looks can bring.

Whether or not colourblind casting is the right artistic choice depends entirely on the genre of the production in question. Bridgerton can use colourblind casting – with fabulous effect – because it is basically a contemporary, camporama bodice-ripper, not a history lesson. We expect to see a troupe of sexy actors poncing around having fun in absurd costumes, and that’s exactly what we get. Sexiness is the overriding concern. Historical ‘accuracy’ is barely a priority.

Wolf Hall is different. It established its internal rules and genre expectations very clearly in its first series as an earnest, realist docu-drama – realist in the sense that it used all the heavily established, widely understood conventions of film and TV production to hide the artifice of the show. Nothing in the production was so artificial or shocking as to draw attention to itself and ‘take you out of the show’. This included casting choices. The performers approximated the outward appearance of their real-life historical counterpoints.

This realism was especially important because it sustained the show’s main function – namely, nostalgic escapism. Anachronism-hunting historians are perpetually offended by costume dramas, because they fundamentally misunderstand the genre. The purpose of costume drama is not to portray history, it is to provide an opportunity for escapist fantasy. The history is there to give depth and a veneer of realism to the fantasy. Petronella Wyatt is too attached to history to see the artistry of costume dramas.

The creators of Wolf Hall have come unstuck because they are attempting to change the fundamental nature of the show and the genre-rules that go into making it. They compound the error by denying that colourblind casting makes a difference. A show that once met the demands of an escapist fantasy has been transformed into a show serving the demands of representational politics. Wolf Hall, which was once a realist docu-drama, has been repurposed as virtue-tainment.

The show’s makers have effectively used an artistic technique – colourblind casting – as a subtle provocation. This is not intended as propaganda to win over the masses to ‘wokery’. Rather, it is meant as in-crowd signalling. If you can watch Wolf Hall and pretend nothing has changed, you are one of the good folk.

Whatever the artistic merits of a production, the public understandably bristles against the idea of watching Wolf Hall as a form of moral duty. They suspect that this an attempt at re-engineering their attitudes or elitist in-crowd back-slapping. Above all, people know they will not be entertained.

The shame of it all is that culture and entertainment can be experimental and new, and popular at the same time. People are happy to embrace and even crave genuinely innovative art and entertainment. Bridgerton, whatever its shortcomings, demonstrates that people don’t have a problem with non-realist artistic choices, if they are taken in the name of fun.

Virtue-signalling is death to art, but so is resistance to change. It closes down real opportunities for experimentation and free play, even in something as profane as entertainment.

Alex Dale and Maren Thom are co-hosts of the Performance Anxiety podcast.

Watch the trailer for season two of Wolf Hall here: