The BBC’s drama controller has confirmed plans to turn the final part of Hilary Mantel’s trilogy into a TV series.

Piers Wenger revealed writer/director Peter Kosminsky has seen the manuscript of Mantel’s The Mirror and The Light, and the work of adapting it for TV has begun.

“Genuinely I think we are engaged in those conversations around getting [co-writer] Peter Straughan, Peter Kosminsky, getting the cast back together,” said Wenger.

The book itself is due to be published next month.

Wenger said Kosminsky had in fact been sent the book – “but it’s only fairly recently. He’s writing at the moment, and he’ll write across this year.”

The original series was based on Mantel’s first two books, Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies. It starred Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell, Damian Lewis as King Henry VIII, Anton Lesser as Sir Thomas More and Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn