Guy Fawkes tale gets the big-budget treatment
Gunpowder (BBC One, Saturday) opened with two scenes of such tension and intensity as to make one wonder why the Guy Fawkes tale hasn’t been told more often. Between religious persecution, political intrigue, halberds and jerkins, the story has been crying out for a glossy, big-budget treatment.
Now it has a three-part series courtesy of Game of Thrones star Kit Harington, who is co-creator, executive producer and plays the lead as Robert Catesby, the historical leader of a plot more commonly associated with Guy Fawkes. Harington could be forgiven for thinking he was born for the role: through his mother’s line, he is a direct descendant of Catesby’s.
The curtain lifted on a stately home in Warwickshire in 1603. Mass was being taken but everyone expected the English inquisition. It duly arrived in the form of Sir William Wade (a growling Shaun Dooley). Wade’s search for the concealed clergy was given a full 15 agonising minutes. Whenever we thought our Popeloving heroes were out of the woods, Wade would redouble his efforts.
We might have guessed how the search would end, but we couldn’t have guessed at the gruesome peine
forte et dure we would be shown next, to say nothing of the hanging, drawing and quartering. The character of Mary Sparrow (Vivienne Soan) was seemingly based on Margaret Clitherow, who historically died 20 years before the events of the film. Some will argue the torture was gratuitous, but it served a purpose. The Church of England was not always as cuddly as it is these days.
After the gruelling half-hour, events settled into a more familiar rhythm. Plots were hatched in dark hallways and muddy streets. Sir Robert Cecil (Mark Gatiss, as ever, playing a crooked bureaucrat) sent a supple young man to persuade King James (Derek Riddell) of the Catholic threat. If the intrigue wasn’t quite as finessed as in Wolf Hall, say, it was much more fun. Perhaps the greatest testament to the writing and direction is that Liv Tyler, not the first actress who springs to mind when one thinks of the early-17th-century Midlands, didn’t look too out of place.
Cruel as it feels to say this about his passion project, one weakness might be Harington. Over seven seasons of
Game of Thrones his character Jon Snow has had greatness slowly thrust upon him. Harington’s mournful resting face, always on the verge of crumpling into tears, is a good fit. Here, we feared he couldn’t plot his way out of a phone box. As Catesby, he is obliged to take the initiative; Parliament won’t blow itself up. Perhaps the arrival of Guy Fawkes (Tom Cullen, to a silly Hans Zimmerstyle score) will light the fireworks. We need bangs, not whimpers.
We keep being told robots will take our jobs. On Robot Wars
(BBC Two, Sunday) they have always done the hard work. They clash, spin, flip. Sparks fly. The house robots have always been evocatively named. Matilda. Shunt. Sgt Bash. Sir Killalot. Dead Metal. What flesh-andbone human could hope to compete with these steel paragons?
Nor do they shirk their media duties. At a model engineering exhibition a few years ago it was my privilege to meet Matilda, one of the intimidating female icons of my childhood. She posed quite happily for a selfie. Perhaps historians will look back and see the programme as a premonition: bristling electronics and machinery duking it out to an audience of gurning and increasingly redundant humans.
We are now up to series 10, although it is really series 3 of the relaunch. The contestant robots have become more professional, and the flipper more or less established as the key weapon. Perhaps partly as a consequence, the contestants are leant on more heavily to be “personalities”, rarely a good idea with people who spend all their free time in the garage. The most egregious example in this first episode was the medical student with a robot called Donald Thump. The robot was hopeless, although not as bad as his owner’s impression of the US President.
Dara O Briain and Angela Scanlon, on presenting duties, are too arch, the latter almost mockingly so. There is a time to tease a nerd, but it is not when he is at the controls of a 100kg fighting machine. As ever, the only human earning his crust is Jonathan Pearce in the commentary box. What a stroke of genius his hiring was. The beauty is that he plays it completely straight. He gets almost as worked up about a piece of cladding falling off as he would about England winning the World Cup. When our robot overlords are welcomed at last, I hope they treat Pearce mercifully.