Gunpowder: BBC’s violent Guy Fawkes drama sparks complaints

A BBC drama about the 1605 gunpowder plot to blow up parliament has drawn complaints for its violence but also praise from fans who commended its historical honesty.

The opening episode, which aired on Saturday, showed a priest being hung, drawn and quartered, and a woman stipped naked, tortured and and crushed to death by a stone slab.

Radio Times polled 3,000 viewers who were almost evenly divided by the violence, with 52.2% saying they didn’t feel the scenes were “too gory”.

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The three-part drama stars Game of Thrones’s Kit Harington playing his own ancestor Robert Catesby. Harington told Radio 1 Newsbeat that the violence was justified. “It was important for the story because right from the start we need to know why Catesby embarks upon this very, very violent act,” he said.

The Daily Mail says some fans were physically ill and quotes MP Andrew Bridgen saying: “The BBC are a law unto themselves. If the BBC intended to shock, they certainly have done.”

Others took to social media to defend what they felt was an accurate portrayal of a historically important period.

Heat magazine’s entertainment director Boyd Hilton called the violence “really extreme” but said he “thought it was bold of everyone involved to make it that extreme”.

While the BBC wouldn’t reveal how many public complaints it received, the broadcaster reported that UK watchdog Ofcom had forwarded seven complaints to the corporation.

The BBC said in a statement that the offending scenes were grounded in historical fact. “Scenes aired after 9.30pm with a clear warning given to viewers before the episode started. The methods depicted are grounded in historical fact and reflect what took place during the time of the gunpowder plot.”