2004
Director: Gillies MacKinnon
Writer: Jimmy McGovern
Producer: Gub Neal - Alan J Wands
Director of Photography: Nigel Willoughby
Costume: Nic Ede
Make-Up Designer: Penny Smith
Music: John Keane - Grigore Lese
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot is a Box TV production for BBC Northern Ireland directed by Gillies MacKinnon, whose credits include such films as Pure, Regeneration, Hideous Kinky and Small Faces. He also directed Jimmy McGovern's 1990 BBC TWO drama Needle.
Filmed entirely on location in Romania with key Scottish crew, McGovern's script concentrates on Mary's short-lived reign and the battles she has to fight with both her Protestant subjects and the English Queen, Elizabeth I.
She conspires with the Earl of Bothwell to assassinate her miscreant husband Lord Darnley.
The story continues with her son James VI of Scotland (who, on Elizabeth's death, became James I of England), and the plot against his reign masterminded by the influential Catholic Robert Catesby - a plot planned by Guy Fawkes, (played by newcomer Michael Fassbender), to blow up the Houses of Parliament in order to rid the nation of an oppressive Protestant monarch.
The drama reunites McGovern with producer Gub Neal. The pair created Cracker together and were also responsible for the award-winning drama-documentary, Hillsborough.
Cast List:
Mary Queen of Scots | .... | Clémence Poésy |
James I | .... | Robert Carlyle |
Lord James Stuart | .... | Steven Duffy |
Bothwell | .... | Kevin McKidd |
Lord Darnley | .... | Paul Nicholls |
David Riccio | .... | Tadeusz Pasternak |
Elizabeth I | .... | Catherine McCormack |
Anne of Denmark | .... | Sira Stampe |
Cecil | .... | Tim McInnerny |
Carmen Ungereanu | .... | Marie of Guise |
Lady Marie | .... | Maria Popistasu |
Lady Huntly | .... | Daniela Nardini |
James Huntly | .... | Iain Robertson |
Sir John Huntly | .... | Radu-Andrei Micu |
John Knox | .... | Gary Lewis |
Lady Margaret | .... | Emilia Fox |
Catesby | .... | Richard Coyle |
Thomas Percy | .... | Richard Harrington |
Guy Fawkes | .... | Michael Fassbender |
Thomas Winter | .... | Sam Troughton |
Francis Tresham | .... | Patrick O'Kane |
Anne Tresham | .... | Madalina Constantin |
Bothwell's Lieutenant | .... | Emil Hostina |
Young Mary | .... | Iona Ruxandra Bratosin |