The programme begins in the classroom where the children meet a storyteller who talks to them about 1666 when our story is set, the city of London and how life was very different then. They meet a ‘soothsayer’ (a pre-recorded character who they watch on a DVD which ideally needs to be played through the IWB) and she foresees what the future holds for the people of London. She tells them about a child Al and their cat who are good friends – they have been separated and need the children’s help. The children are then led to the hall.
When they enter the hall the children see a make shift tent set up next to a cart. The children sit down and are invited to consider who might be living here and why. They soon meet Al who is 10 years old and the central character to the story. Al is wary of them at first as s/he thinks they are going to steal the precious objects s/he has collected from the fire. However soon s/he confides in the children that s/he has lost her cat, Lucky during the fire and asks for their help in finding her. In order to discover where Lucky might be, Al decides to revisit with the children all the places s/he has spent time with Lucky, starting with Pudding Lane.
The children travel to Thomas Farrinor’s bakery on the day that Al and Lucky first met. They are quickly en-roled as Al to experience life as an apprentice under the instruction of Thomas Farrinor – they carry out various jobs around the bakery and help to design a celebration cake for the return of the King to London after the plague. The children then follow in Al’s footsteps as the bakery catches fire. They become the buildings on Pudding Lane, they watch as paper puppets enact the escape of the baker and his family and they see paper chains of people unfurled to represent the number of residents made homeless by the fire.
As the fire worsens Al and Lucky lead the children to the Mayor’s house where they watch the Mayor on DVD dismiss the fire. With no-one taking action Al and Lucky are forced to flee to the river Thames where they attempt to escape by boat. The children watch as this is played out using miniature paper puppets and see Al overlooked by the boatman in favour of Samuel Pepys and his pocket full of silver. After this Al and Lucky are left with no choice but to return to the burning city and the children create a soundtrack of the fire using paper. They create a bucket chain and attempt to quell the fire and watch as the storyteller puppets the pulling down of buildings with fire hooks to create fire breaks.
A plan is hatched to pull down the wigmaker’s house to stop the fire spreading further and the children again follow Al and Lucky there. They are met by the indignant wigmaker him/herself who refuses to allow them permission to demolish his/her house unless it is with an order from the King. The children travel to the palace and are guided by Al through the kitchens (which s/he knows from his/her deliveries of bread and cakes to the royal household) into the throne room where they confront the King himself. After convincing him of the scale and significance of the fire, the King issues the orders for the pulling down of houses to take place. The children return with Al to the wigmaker’s house and pull it down. The King arrives shortly afterwards and congratulates them on their bravery and informs them that gunpowder has replaced the use of fire hooks and that they need to take cover.
The children then hear from the storyteller that the fire has finally stopped burning, but that in the chaos, Al and Lucky have been separated. They travel up to the fields full of tents where the story started and imagine what they would take with them if they had to leave their homes. They meet Al once again and revisit all the locations in the story in an attempt to locate the still missing Lucky. The children identify the moment where Lucky disappeared and help Al to find his/her cat. As Al and Lucky are reunited the children are left to think about what the new city of London might look like.
