In a spin: Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall, and Michael McIntyre, host of The Wheel
ILLUSTRATION BY TONY BELL
We should all be very worried about Thomas Cromwell. He is looking more wretched in each episode, the facial pallor greying like a plate of boiled potatoes left uncovered in the fridge. He is becoming hunched and racked with some ague, falling out of bed, coughing, dislocated and fatally weakened. He is losing friends, too, and you sense that the march up to Tower Hill and the chopping block will not be long in coming.
Well, we know that for a fact, of course. But who should take the most credit for enabling us to keep rooting for Cromwell — a man who was (seen from the tyranny of now) an authoritarian Machiavellian thug? Hilary Mantel certainly and Mark Rylance, who can somehow convey the
