Hulu's 'A Thousand Blows' Trailer Sees Stephen Graham Enter the Ring
Stephen Graham in "A Thousand Blows"
(Photo: Hulu)
"You are in London. And this city makes only one promise — that it will kill you the first chance it gets." Such is the promise at the heart of the teaser for Hulu's A Thousand Blows, a period drama teaming with the sort of grit and violence you don't necessarily expect to see in a series set in traditionally prim Victorian England. But this is a series from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, a storyteller who has seemingly always been fascinated with the dark underbelly of this particular genre. His post-war Birmingham gangster drama was brutal in almost every sense of the word, from the literal bloodshed on its streets to the increasingly flexible morality of virtually every central character.
His latest project seems to follow a similar path. (It's not an accident that this show bears so many visual similarities to its predecessor, is what I'm saying.) In A Thousand Blows, Knight shifts his setting a few decades earlier and trades gun-running and drug dealing for the violent world of East London's underground bare-knuckle boxing scene. While its story will undoubtedly take its fair share of liberties with little-known facts, it will primarily be based on the lives of actual historical figures.
The series follows the story of Hezekiah Moskow (Malachi Kirby), an immigrant from Jamaica whose success in the ring brings him into conflict with a veteran boxer named Sugar Goodson (Stephen Graham). (Fun fact: The real Sugar Goodson had a brother who also boxed and went by the nickname Treacle.) Hezekiah's skills will also apparently catch the eye of the infamous Mary Carr (Erin Doherty), the leader of the girl gang known as The Forty Elephants, whose members were known for their skill at shoplifting and fencing stolen goods.
Here's the series synopsis.
A Thousand Blows is inspired by the true-life stories of a group of characters battling for survival in the brutal East End of London in the 1880’s. Hezekiah and Alec, two friends from Jamaica, find themselves thrust into the criminal underbelly of London's East End. It's there they meet Mary Carr, Queen of an all-female criminal gang known as The Forty Elephants, and run afoul of Sugar Goodson, criminal kingpin and notorious boxer. What ensues is a battle of the old world against the new.
Alongside Graham, Kirby, and Doherty, the series’ main ensemble also features Francis Lovehall (Criminal Record), Jason Tobin (Warrior), and James Nelson-Joyce (The Gold). The women who will comprise Mary Carr’s girl gang, The Forty Elephants, include Hannah Walters (Time), Darci Shaw (The Irregulars), Nadia Albina (Doctor Who), Jemma Carlton (The Cleaner), Caoilfhionn Dunne (Industry), and newcomer Morgan Hilaire.
Knight is the lead writer for the series, with episodes also written by a group of new voices, including Ameir Brown, Insook Chappell, Harlan Davies, and Yasmin Joseph. Knight is also an executive producer alongside Graham and Hannah Waters for Matriarch Productions, Damian Keogh & Kate Lewis for The Story Collective, Tom Miller & Sam Myer for Water & Power Productions, and Lee Mason for Disney+. Award-winning broadcaster and historian David Olusoga is also an executive producer, with Tom Miller as Series Producer and Barrington Robinson and Jo Johnson as producers.
A Thousand Blows doesn't have a release date yet, but it is expected to premiere in 2025 on Disney+ in the U.K., Hulu (and under the Hulu Tile on Disney+) in the U.S., and select other countries.
