You have a choice. Either blow up parliament or thwart British history’s most ambitious conspiracy.
These are the options available to you – yes, you – if you enter the sprawling underground vaults near the Tower Of .
This is the location of The Gunpowder Plot, not only the prison where Guy Fawkes himself was held but nearby the location of London’s latest immersive show – so immersive in fact its audience of up to 16 for each two-hour showing are transported to 1605.
Here they will find themselves standing next to Guy Fawkes himself and his fellow conspirators as they plot to explode 36 barrels of gunpowder under the mother of all parliaments.
The question is, are you one of them or a government spy? ‘The audience actually feel the reality of what was being planned,’ says Danny Robins, the writer and brains behind the multi-million pound show.
‘You are with real people making real decisions.’ When Danny says ‘reality’ he means the virtual kind with VR goggles, but also the real world, physical kind which allows the audience to feel the sensation, wind and spray of such pulse-quickening events as escaping the Tower Of London on a zip wire (just as a Catholic priest did in Jacobean London).
It is here where the floor drops away from the audience’s feet as they zip through the air away from the prison’s ramparts.
Soon they will be navigating the Thames westward on boats as the plot (in both senses of the word) barrels (also in both senses) towards the intended target. ‘The idea of the show is that you are sucked into a government plan to infiltrate the Gunpowder Plot as a spy,’ explains Danny.
‘You reach a point where your loyalties are torn between the Crown and the plot, because when you meet the plotters you realise they have valid concerns and have been persecuted [as Catholics],’ continues Danny as he leads the way through a maze of underground passages and rooms that are still being constructed for the production, a hybrid show of VR and theatre but which for the audience is like moving through a film set.
One room is already bedecked with beautiful handcrafted panelling. Here there are several hidden panels behind which plotters – that’s you – hide in priest holes.
‘These people were the Jacobean equivalent of modern activists,’ says Danny.
‘They felt persecuted; they saw their loved ones being imprisoned and executed, and they wanted to change the world. But they chose to do it in this incredibly extreme way.
‘One of the things about the Gunpowder Plot is that we can get a little bit removed from the reality of what they were doing. They were going to blow up Parliament, which would have wiped out a massive area of London and Ki**ed hundreds of people. So the show poses the question, can any cause ever justify that kind of violence?’
It is this ethical dilemma with which audience are made to grapple and which makes The Gunpowder Plot much more than a thrill ride, says Danny.
Yet it is brimful of ‘derring-do’ as Danny puts it.
The show’s creator is also the author of the West End hit 2:22 A Ghost Story, the play for which was nominated for an Olivier. Danny is also behind the hugely popular The Battersea Poltergeist podcasts which leads the list of BBC downloads.
Now he finds himself with two groundbreaking shows at the same time, and both now starring ’s Tom Felton, who is one of the new cast of 2:22 and in The Gunpowder Plot plays explosives expert Guy Fawkes.
Or a digitised version of him. Every square inch of this show appears to be created with cutting-edge techniques.
In one area there is the hum of 3D printers creating the show’s props. Danny peers with wonder at a machine ‘printing’ a Jacobean lantern, just like the one used by Guy Fawkes when he was arrested under the Houses Of Parliament.
‘The real one is at the Ashmolean Museum,’ says Danny as the object takes form. ‘I am a lifelong history buff,’ he adds.
‘I was the kind of kid who made my parents take me to watch historical reenactments like The Sealed Knot. The Gunpowder Plot was always one of those events that I was particularly obsessed with.’
For Danny the plot is right up there among the most compelling events in British history – ‘a seismic moment where it’s the British revolution that never happened,’ he says.
‘It feels to me like it embodies a very British spirit to kick against authority and stick it to the man. I think Guy Fawkes embodies a lot of that for many people.’
Fawkes’s execution was of course a horrible, drawn-out torture. Does Danny worry about making entertainment from events that included such barbarity?
‘It’s a good question,’ he admits. ‘But I think the… history gives us licence to tell the story. I’ve been on Jack The Ripper walks and felt uneasy about that.
‘But enjoying the complexity of The Gunpowder Plot reflects our complex times, where we are being asked to make difficult decisions about ideologies and . So I sort of feel we are honouring that spirit.’
From Draco to Guy Fawkes: What Tom Felton makes of the role
It’s one thing watching yourself ride a broomstick on screen. It’s another to be hanging out with yourself,’ says Tom Felton.
Those who know Tom as Draco Malfoy, ’s foe at Hogwarts, will understand the first part of that statement. The second might be more puzzling.
Tom is talking about the distinctly odd sensation that awaits him when he visits The Gunpowder Plot for the first time.
In the new, hugely ambitious immersive show which combines virtual and physical reality, the audience is transported to Jacobean to take part in British history’s most audacious plot.
Here they will first encounter their fellow conspirators including Guy Fawkes, played by Tom, in a virtual version of the Duck And Drake, the pub in which the conspirators are said to have hatched their plan.
Tom will be the one in ‘a tunic with a sort of leather jacket and a really cool cape and some fabulously high boots,’ says the actor while on his way to the show in which he is currently appearing every night in the flesh, 2:22 A Ghost Story.
However, in The Gunpowder Plot Tom’s 17th century alter ego is entirely digital. ‘I was brought into this sort of very well-lit white studio,’ he says, describing the process for this unique show.
‘I was surrounded by God knows how many cameras – a shedload – to shoot everything from every possible angle. I have seen the mock-ups and it is quite extraordinary. It takes the film and theatre experience to a new dimension.’
The plot to blow up Parliament is ‘the story that keeps on giving,’ says Tom, who learned a lot about the history while preparing for the role.
‘I didn’t really know too much about how the monarchy oppressed Catholics at that time, or the band of misfits that hatched the plot [because of the persecution].
‘I can certainly see why the production decided to use this story as their maiden voyage, using all of these technologies to bring the history to life.’
In a few days Tom will be trying out the full experience for the first time – and so will his brothers, for whom The Gunpowder Plot might also be uniquely strange.
‘They’re all big fans of the history, but I wonder what it will be like for them hanging out with an ancient version of their youngest brother,’ says Tom.
The Gunpowder Plot is at Tower Hill Vaults in London, book tickets .
