The Gunpowder Plot
- Jonathan Davidson
Jonathan Davidson - The Gunpowder Plot
BBC Radio 3: Drama on 3
Broadcast: Sunday 6th November 2005 @ 7:45 p.m.
Radio 3 marks the 400th anniversary of the plot to blow up King James I and his Parliament with a play that looks at how the
Establishment deals with a terrorist threat.
Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, ruthlessly and efficiently conducts the hunt for the plotters - but his real target is Father Henry Garnet,
leader of the Jesuits.
Salisbury is a consummate politician who may have known more about the Plot than he is prepared to reveal either to King James or to
Lord Popham, head of the Privy Council. The fleeing, unsuccessful plotters are rapidly pursued and killed or captured (including Guy
Fawkes) but Salisbury is after bigger fish. He is convinced that the Jesuit priests, banned and forced into hiding several years before,
are thr root cause of instability in the nation and he uses the opportunity to hunt them out.
With David Calder [Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury], Cal Macaninch [King James I], Sean Arnold [Lord Popham], John Henshaw [Father
Henry Garnet, Leader of the Jesuits], Helen Longworth [Anne Vaux], Ben Crowe [Nicholas Owen], Gary McFarlane [Master Carey],
Hugh Dickson [Father Oldcorn], Trevor Cuthbertson [Sir Thomas Bromley], Chris Moran [The Adviser], and Anthony Glennon [The
Servant].
Directed by David Hunter.
100 min.
