Winter can move on as “Autumn is coming,” announced BBC One as it unveiled the teaser for Game of Thrones heartthrob Kit Harington’s upcoming television drama Gunpowder.
“I, Robert Catesby, will blow the king and all his men to hell,” Harington, best known for playing Jon Snow, fumes in the teaser. The show is based on the 1605 plot to assassinate King James I. Harington plays Robert Catesby, while Tom Cullen will portray Guy Fawkes.
“Shooting starts this month of the real story of the Gunpowder Plot, the 1605 attempt by a group of provincial English Catholics to blow up the House of Lords and kill King James I in order to help restore a Catholic to the throne,” Deadline reported. “The plot was foiled on November 5 that year when authorities at Westminster Palace found Fawkes guarding the explosives. Brits still celebrate Guy Fawkes Night every year with bonfires and fireworks.”
Catesby was the “driving force” behind the plot – a “30-year old Warwickshire gentleman and committed Catholic at a time when Protestant England persecuted the church’s members relentlessly”, the website said.
The series will also star BBC regular Mark Gatiss (Sherlock, Doctor Who), Peter Mullan (The Claim, Trainspotting, Ozark) and Liv Taylor (The Leftovers).
In 2018, Harington will headline Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan’s The Death and Life of John F Donovan. The arthouse movie will see Harington play a reality television star alongside Jessica Chastain.
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