Shakespeare’s Gunpowder Plot

Shakespeare is the King’s favourite and the darling of London, but when he learns about the gunpowder plot his latest work, Macbeth, suddenly becomes incendiary. King killing is now a real possibility. Shakespeare planned to justify regicide but now, with often ludicrous help from King James himself, he must rewrite the play to get himself out of trouble and distance himself from the Gunpowder Plot. He moves from feeling free to practice his art to feeling that his play is a monster that might destroy him. Compromise or face treason is the painful choice he must make.  

A unique story about the dangers of artistic freedom. Tensions, reversals, treason and gallows humour throughout. 

Initially, set up by award winning writer Steve Attridge, Skyros Productions is a new company formed with talented people alongside Marina Sossi who joins as Company and Artistic Director bringing a wealth of creative energy and performance technique to the project. Our remit is to create challenging stories that engage with questions of identity, history and culture. This first play is a good example of our ambition to make big stories come alive through strong character and telling detail. We plan to develop conventional plays and multimedia works. 

 Steve Attridge, writer, has received a number of awards for his work: 

3 Royal Television Society Awards and Writer’s Guild Award for the BBC TV series The Queen’s Nose,  

Writer’s Guild Awards for ITV’s The Bill and BBC series Billy Webb’s Amazing Story, 

2 BAFTA nominations for BBC series The Queen’s Nose and The Boot Street Band  

Best Film Award at Taormina Film Festival for feature film GUY X 

Best Brit Film for BBC TV film Hawkins, 

TV Press Award for ITV series Harry’s Mad 

Eric Gregory Award for Poetry and a Radio 4 Travel Writing Award