The 'Dope Girls' Trailer Brings the Dark Side of Post-War Soho to Life

Too often, when we think of women in period dramas, we think of shows like Downton Abbey or Bridgerton, shows that put their female characters in elaborate dresses and send them off for tea or balls. It seems safe to say that the BBC's upcoming period drama Dope Girls is not that sort of show.

At least visually speaking, Dope Girls feels like it belongs in the Peaky Blinders universe, and that's probably on purpose. Sure, this show is set in post-World War I London rather than the Birmingham of Knight's popular gangland drama, but the gritty aesthetic, morally gray characters, and the end of the fighting's impact on a rapidly changing society are all the same. 

Inspired by Marek Kohn’s nonfiction book Dope Girls: The Birth of the British Drug Underground, the series is set just after the war ended in 1918 when a generation of newly empowered women were reluctant to give up the financial independence and professional opportunities they'd gained during the war years. This was a time when female gangs were openly running the clubs in London's Soho neighborhood: Dealing drugs, selling moonshine, and essentially pioneering what would eventually become the modern nightclub industry.

The series puts two trailblazing women on a collision course with one another: Kate Gallaway (Julianne Nicholson), a single mother who embraces a criminal lifestyle in the hopes of providing for her young daughter, and Violet Davies (Eliza Scanlen), a member of one of the first wave of female officers permitted to join the Metropolitan Police and who must go undercover to investigate the criminal underworld of Soho.

Here's the series' synopsis. 

It is the end of World War One. As Britain celebrates the Armistice on the streets of London, men return from the front expecting to rejoin society and pick up where they left off - but a newly empowered generation of women are loath to simply return to the kitchen.

Using Soho’s expanding illicit underground clubland scene as their playground, women explore previously unimaginable opportunities on either side of the law.

The series' ensemble also features Umi Myers (Bob Marley: One Love) as Billie Cassidy, Geraldine James (Silo) as Isabella, Rory Fleck Byrne (This is Going to Hurt) as Luca Salucci, Dustin Demri-Burns (Slow Horses) as Damasco Salucci, Eben Figueiredo (The Serial Killer's Wife) as Matteo Rossi Salucci, and Sebastian Croft (Heartstopper). 

Other notable cast members include Michael Duke (Get Up Stand Up), Ian Bonar (I May Destroy You), Laura Checkley (Detectorists), Will Keen (His Dark Materials), Fiona Button (The Split), Harry Cadby (Everything Now), Nabhaan Rizwan (Kaos), Riya Kansara (Polite Society), and Jordan Kouame (Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light). 

Dope Girls is created by Polly Stenham (The Neon Demon) and Alex Warren (Eleanor), who also serve as lead writers. They're joined by Matthew Barry (Industry), Matthew Jacobs Morgan (The Rig), and Xiao Tang (You Killed My Robot). Shannon Murphy (Killing Eve) is the lead director with Miranda Bowen (Women in Love) also helming episodes.

Stenham, Warren, and Barry are also executive producers, alongside Kate Crowther and Jane Tranter from Bad Wolf, Michael Lesslie for Storyteller Productions, and Rebecca Ferguson for the BBC.

Dope Girls will premiere this February on BBC One and iPlayer. It does not have an American distributor.