'The Crown's' Erin Doherty Joins the Cast of Period Drama 'A Thousand Blows'

The Crown Season 4 truly is the gift that keeps on giving. Not only is this the outing that launched the Netflix drama into the pop cultural stratosphere, but it also gave the series' younger royals time to shine, most notably Josh O'Connor as Prince Charles and Emma Corrin as Princess Diana. But they weren't the only standouts among the royal family: Erin Doherty won raves for her performance as Charles' acerbic younger sister Anne, the Princess Royal. And now she's set to take a major role in another period drama that's loosely based on real people and events, Stephen Knight's A Thousand Blows.

The latest series from the creator of Peaky Blinders, A Thousand Blows is set in the perilous world of illegal boxing in 1880s Victorian London and sounds as though it will boast the same mix of unapologetic violence and period grit that made Knight's story of a Birmingham gang family so addictive.

The story follows the journey of Hezekiah Moskow (Malachi Kirby) and Alec Monroe (Francis Lovehall), two best friends from Jamaica who find themselves drawn into the violent world of East London's underground bare-knuckle boxing scene. Hezekiah's success will lead him into a dangerous rivalry with veteran boxer Sugar Goodson (Stephen Graham) and into the orbit of one Mary Carr, the leader of the notorious all-female London gang known as The Forty Elephants.