Such a frustrating disappointment

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

This one-off documentary is a gem. In the small hours of November 5, 1605, Guy Fawkes was found sitting underneath the House of Lords minding 36 barrels of gunpowder which he was anticipating would shortly blow King James I and everyone else in the building to Kingdom Come. We know of course that his fiendish plot was interrupted, and of the terrible price he and his fellow conspirators paid for their treason, but most of us don't know much more about the Gunpowder Plot, including if it could have succeeded, namely would a mere 36 barrels have been enough?That last question is answered here in spectacular fashion as celebrating its 4th centenary, Richard Hammond and his team build an exact replica of the building in a secret location, and plant 36 barrels of gunpowder underneath it. If you are wondering how this was possible, one of the things you probably don't know is that the original House of Lords was a much smaller building than the spectacular Palace of Westminster you have doubtless seen on TV if not visited. The building was a mere 21 metres by 9, and the cellar was not really a cellar but an undercroft, ie the ground floor. Even so, this was a mighty task that involved using every single concrete truck in Cumbria and importing the gunpowder from Spain, a transport that had to be made under strict conditions of anonymity. The experiment was carried out on Army property. It is, said Hammond, ironic that we set off fireworks to celebrate the big firework that didn't go off; that idea comes from the King who ordered as a public celebration of his deliverance from evil that bonfires be lit across the land. You can probably guess the result of the experiment, but if you get time, check out the video which was uploaded to YouTube last year.

In 1605 a group of English Roman Catholics (who would be called 'extemists' or 'terrorists' today) attempted to assassinate King James I and his Parliament as the first stage in a coup d'etat which would lead to the restoration of Catholicism as the national faith. Their plan was to detonate a huge stock of gunpowder in the cellars beneath the Palace of Westminster (which were available for rent in those days). Fortunately - or not, depending on your point of view - the plot was betrayed before it could be carried out.400 years later British TV had the happy idea of trying to find out what would have happened if the explosion had taken place. They found a site on a remote army artillery range (the location was supposedly a "military secret" but I reckon it was Warcop in Cumbria) where they rebuilt the Houses of Parliament of the early 1600's using authentic construction methods and used crash-test dummies to stand in for the people. They ordered a huge amount of gunpowder from a traditional manufacturer in Spain, put it in place and set it off.The results were awesome. The buildings were devastated and body parts and wreckage were strewn over a huge area. There would have been few survivors if the original plotters had succeeded, and English history would have been very different.The programme combined the recreation of the explosion itself with telling the story of the Gunpowder Plot (still celebrated with fireworks and bonfires in the UK every November 5th). The history was OK but for once a piece of recreation stole the show. The sight of the explosion and an entire building being ripped apart was unforgettable.