Review - Gunpowder - episode one

Kit Harrington as Robert Catesby

Well I sat down to watch the first recorded episode of 'Gunpowder' with my feet up, a cup of tea in hand and a slice of my neighbour's Diwali cake at the ready. But it proved to be less entertaining than graphically gory. Did we really need to witness the details of public executions early seventeenth century style? I needed a break half way through before steeling the nerves for the second half. But it was worth it.

How enlightening it was to learn about the oppression of Catholics 400 years ago. It reminded me of the recent episode of 'Victoria', which focused on the Irish famine and shocked so many viewers with its authentic portrayal of the horrors. This glossy three-part series is historically accurate and based on the failed assassination attempt of 1605 on King James I, called the Gunpowder Plot. Provincial English Catholics wanted to blow up the House of Lords and kill King James during a visit there in order to help restore a Catholic to the throne. That was the time when Protestant England persecuted the Catholics in England.

The story opened with a furtive Catholic Mass in the house of a recusant family, which was interrupted by soldiers seeking Catholic priests who had hidden in secret spaces in the house. The tension was palpable. The Catholic woman who owned the house was later crushed to death as punishment for her faith and harbouring an illegal priest, and the Jesuit priest found was hung, drawn and quartered. It must have been excruciating to film, never mind being experienced back then. One viewer said, "this execution scene is one of the most painful things I've ever witnessed on TV". It provided an authentic glimpse into the real, raw world that people endured in the early 1600s.

Game of Thrones actor Kit Harrington plays his actual ancestor Robert Catesby, the mastermind behind the Gunpowder Plot. In fact, Harrington's middle name is Catesby. Born in 1572, and raised in a family of recusant Catholics, Robert Catesby became radicalised in the last years of Elizabeth l's reign, and more so when, in 1603-1604, hopes that the new king, James, would be a more tolerant ruler were dashed. James exiled all Jesuits and Catholic priests, and re-imposed the collection of fines for recusancy. Catesby began to gather together likeminded men similarly suffering under the current regime, and I don't think we're in any doubt where the next two installments are going. The foiled plot to blow up King James while he was in the House of Lords on 5 November 1605 will be commemorated on our streets next week, as it is every year. The gunpowder expert Guy Fawkes was discovered guarding the gunpowder in the undercroft of parliament, and the entire scheme fell apart. Catesby died days later clutching a picture of the Virgin Mary after being shot in Staffordshire. His and the heads of other plotters were displayed outside Parliament.

After the grisly opening of the first episode there were interesting discussions further in about the divine rights of kings, a notion which Catesby challenged, and about planning the use of violence to tackle an injustice. Jesuit priest Henry Garnet - who was executed in 1606 - is seen exhorting English Catholics not to engage in violent rebellion.

One comment afterwards on twitter said, "it's a shame they don't live in our enlightened times where no one cares which religion you follow...oh, wait". The producers have said there is a contemporary resonance in trying to understand what leads desperate people of faith to plan acts of terror. However, my pleasure in the Diwali cake, generously given by a Hindu neighbour, reminds me that we do enjoy more tolerant times here in Britain. I'll be watching the rest of this gripping series.

View Episode 1 of 'Gunpowder' at:
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p05j1cg8/gunpowder-series-1-episode-1