Hilary Mantel: Not everyone will 'get' Wolf Hall but I won't dumb it down 

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Hilary Mantel: Not everyone will \'get\' Wolf Hall but I won\'t dumb it down

Hilary Mantel, the author of Wolf Hall, says the television adaptation will not be \'dumbed down\' so that everyone can understand

Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell in the BBC\'s adaptation of Hilary Mantel\'s Wolf Hall 

With more than 1,000 pages of historical drama, the story of Wolf Hall has never been considered an easy read.

It appears the BBC adaption will not be any less demanding for the average viewer, as author Hilary Mantel warns she refused to "dumb down" to suit a broad television audience.

Mantel, the author of the original novels, has warned the adaption will be “complex”, arguing there is no point making concessions in the story in a bid to please everyone.

Saying she refused to reduce it to “clichés and over-simplifications”, she emphasised the high-brow material would make it even more enjoyable for those intelligent enough to understand it.

Wolf Hall, the six-part television adaptation of her novels about the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell in the Tudor court, will be broadcast on BBC Two from Wednesday.

Why isn\'t Henry VIII fat and other Wolf Hall mysteries explained

Speaking after a special screening of the first two episodes at the BFI, in London, Mantel said she was “constantly” hearing – and rejecting - complaints that the books were “so hard”.

“Look, there are plenty of easy books out there for people who want to be spoon-fed clichés about the Tudors,” she said. “But there is room for something else.”

When asked how the adaptation would be pitched, following complaints about historical inaccuracies and narrative liberties taken by drama The Tudors, she admitted some viewers “are not going to get” all of the references involved.

“But what pleasure for those of us who do,” she added. "It is complex, there\'s no point in dumbing down the story. Why do it if you have to reduce it to clichés and over-simplifications?

"What you can do is do it honestly, do it with integrity, try to serve its complexities and also hope to carry the audience with you when you open to them the possibilities.

"I think what we wanted to do is move our viewer, draw our viewer in, but still allow our viewer the space to think and question."

Peter Kosminsky, the director, added the drama would be far from the “escapist pap” seen elsewhere, as he spoke up for “serious television”.

Summing up her response to the final cut of Wolf Hall, which encompasses the first two novels in the trilogy in six hours, Mantel said: “It’s wonderful, it’s gorgeous, it’s intelligent, it’s witty; it is every that one could imagine and more.”

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