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Game of Thrones' Kit Harington lines up Guy Fawkes drama for BBC

Working under the title of Gunpowder, the miniseries is set to recount the tale of the Gunpowder Plot partially led by Fawkes in 1605

Clarisse Loughrey
Tuesday 04 October 2016 16:14 BST
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(AFP/Getty Images)

Kit Harington is coming to your TV screen in a very different guise to Game of Thrones' brooding Jon Snow.

Variety reports he's set to star in and produce a drama about the infamous Guy Fawkes for the BBC, under the working title of Gunpowder; set to recount the tale of the Gunpowder Plot partially led by Fawkes in 1605, initiated by a group of English Catholics attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament while King James I was in attendance.

The group hoped the King's death would initiate a revolt in the Midlands, under which James' nine-year-old daughter Elizabeth could be installed as a Catholic head of state; as part of a wider surge of assassination attempts across Europe against Protestant rulers.

Fawkes was discovered in the cellars of the parliament buildings on the night of 4/5 November 1605, guarding a pile of wood not far from 36 barrels of gunpowder which he intended to ignite the following day, during the State Opening of the second session of James' first English Parliament. Fawkes and other co-conspirators were executed.

The miniseries will comprise of three hour-long episodes; perhaps initiated by the fact Harington revealed earlier this year that he was, in fact, related to the lead conspirator of the Gunpowder Plot, Robert Catesby.

Game Of Thrones: 'Season 7 will be bigger and better'

The show seems to fall in line with Harington's larger plans to produce his own TV content; telling The Guardian, "I’d love to go back into a top-quality TV show, because that’s where storytelling is at its most exciting and dangerous at the moment. Also, I’ve written three TV shows with my best friend, Dan West, two of which we have sold, so I would like to see myself producing. I met Dan at drama school — we live together and write together. It’s like a sexless marriage.”

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