First aired on ITV1 on 1 November 2005, this £1 million[1] programme centres on a reconstruction of the Houses of Parliament as they were in 1605 (the current ones had not yet been built at the time of the Gunpowder Plot), constructed using period equivalent methods wherever possible.

It also answers the question of whether the plot would have actually worked: the Houses of Parliament would have been completely obliterated, and most of the windows in nearby Westminster Abbey would have been shattered.

Pollard concludes that the plot was a "stupid" plan, stating that "you can't change the politics of a whole country just by blowing up a few hundred people".

[6] When approached with the idea of building a full-size replica of Parliament, stuffing the basement with gunpowder and blowing it up, presenter Richard Hammond considered it a hoax.

While historical research was underway in England, Hammond and explosives expert Sidney Alford had to travel to Spain to buy some gunpowder, as not enough was available in the UK.

They were stopped at the French border by customs because, as Hammond recounted, "perhaps unsurprisingly, our expert turned out to be contaminated with traces of just about every form of explosive known to man, triggering a security alert.

This is, after all, the story of a young man who felt persecuted in his country, who travelled abroad to learn how to use explosives and returned prepared to perpetrate an appalling act of terrorism - and if that rings a bell, so it should.Production designer Jo Manser built part of the House of Lords (the Westminster tower) to scale as it was in 1605, and then "blew it up to see if Guy Fawkes would have succeeded 400 years ago".

"[9] Sunday Express' Adrian Pettet points out that Gunpowder is "a cross between Mechannibals and Timewatch, it's great fun and there is a bit of proper history smuggled in there too".