
How A Thousand Blows reimagines Victorian England's underground boxing world
A Thousand Blows is a new TV show that takes viewers inside London's underground boxing world — and one of its most notorious crime syndicates.
Set in England in the 1880s, the crime drama follows characters based on real-life historical figures Mary Carr, leader of the female gang of thieves called the Forty Elephants, and Hezekiah Moscow, a Jamaican British bare-knuckle boxer. While there's no evidence that Carr and Moscow ever met in real life, the show imagines what would happen if they did cross paths.
Today on Commotion, culture critics Hanna Flint and Jovanté Anderson join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to share their thoughts on the show, and how well it brings this little-known history to light.
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