Don't insult the audience's intelligence says 'Wolf Hall' author, Hilary Mantel

“As soon as you decide it’s too complicated for the viewer or history is an inconvenient shape, you fall into a cascade of errors which ends in nonsense”, author Hilary Mantel said to the audience at the Cheltenham Literature Festival. Referring to her novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies and their upcoming BBC adaptations, Mantel stressed the importance of not under-estimating the intelligence of her readers and audience, reports Radio Times. “As soon as you decide this is too complicated for the viewer or history is an inconvenient shape – ‘I’ll just tidy it up’ – you fall into a cascade of errors which ends in nonsense”, citing Showtime’s The Tudors as the perfect example of how simply combining history and drama does not always make for good telly.

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