BBC drama Gunpowder shocks viewers with ‘hideously brutal’ scenes of dismemberment, execution
‘This execution scene is one of the most painful things I’ve ever witnessed on TV’
The BBC’s new prime time drama, Gunpowder, was described as unnecessarily gruesome and brutal over graphic scenes of violence, which aired in Britain on Saturday night.
The three-part series chronicles the plot to blow up the House of Lords in 1605, with Game of Thrones star Kit Harington playing his ancestor Robert Catesby, the mastermind behind the plot.
The opening episode contained close-up scenes of a young priest being hung, drawn and quartered and a woman stripped naked before being crushed to death by a stone slab, prompting complaints from viewers.
One viewer said she felt “traumatised” by the “hideously brutal” scenes, while another commented: “This execution scene is one of the most painful things I’ve ever witnessed on TV.”
Sally Abbott, the lead writer on BBC1 crime drama The Coroner, said she thought Gunpowder – which began 10 minutes after the 9pm watershed for adult programming – was a “very good drama”.
However, she said she felt compelled to change channels during the scene of a woman being stripped and tortured, which she said “made my heart sink” in the context of the revelations about actors being sexually harassed by Harvey Weinstein.