Latest news with #40Elephants
The Independent
24-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Peaky Blinder's fans hail creator's ‘superb' new series as ‘best British show ever'
Viewers of the new series, A Thousand Blows, have showered the show with praise after it debuted on Disney Plus on Friday (23 February). The new show, which stars Stephen Graham, Erin Doherty and Malachi Kirby, blends the world of London's underground boxing scene in the Victorian era and the story of The 40 Elephants, an all-female gang of thieves, prominent in the 1920s. It's the latest creation from Peaky Blinders mastermind, Steven Knight. Graham plays the show's antagonist, a ruthless bare-knuckle boxer called Heny 'Sugar' Goodson, who enters a rivalry with Kirby's Hezekiah Moscow, a Jamaican immigrant, who arrived in England with his best friend Alec (Francis Lovehall). Moscow befriends Doherty's Mary Carr, the leader of the 40 Elephants, who also have their own score the settle with Goodson. All the characters are loosely based on real people, despite some of them never actually meeting in real life. Although the show only arrived on Disney Plus a few days ago, viewers have spent the weekend watching all six episodes and some are already hailing it as a masterpiece. One person who watched the first half of the show said: 'Watched the first three episodes of 'A Thousand Blows' last night, superb thus far, brilliant writing, cast and characters.' Another added: 'This show 'A Thousand Blows' is definitely the best British show I've ever seen and definitely one of the best shows I've seen. Top tier!!!' Meanwhile, a third claimed: 'The new Disney series, A Thousand Blows is 10/10 and everyone needs to watch.' ' A Thousand Blows season 2 when?' a fourth viewer enthusiastically asked. Graham, 51, has recently opened up about his physical transformation for the show, admitting that he's become 'obsessed' with the routine and incorporated it into his own workout. In preparation for the role, the This is England star worked with a professional bodybuilder to build his physique, which has been praised by fans. Graham's transformation took him roughly six months, during which he was training for five days a week and eating a diet of chicken, rice and broccoli. Speaking to The Guardian, Graham revealed he's an 'obsessive person' and continued the gruelling training long after filming for the series wrapped. 'It's now part of my life,' he said.
The Independent
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
A Thousand Blows: The remarkable true story of bare-knuckle boxer Hezekiah Moscow and notorious girl gang The 40 Elephants
In the grimy underworld of 19th-century London, a bare-knuckle boxer dreams of making a name for himself, while an all-female gang of thieves terrorises the West End. This is the world of A Thousand Blows, the latest historical drama from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, which lands on Disney+ this week. Starring Stephen Graham, Small Axe 's Malachi Kirby, and The Crown's Erin Doherty, the series is a brutal, fast-paced tale of Victorian London's underground fight scene, entwined with the exploits of The 40 Elephants – a notorious all-female crime syndicate. While much of the drama is fictionalised, both the gang and the enigmatic boxer at its heart, Hezekiah Moscow, are rooted in real history. Knight's A Thousand Blows follows Moscow, played by Kirby, as he becomes entangled in the criminal world ruled by The 40 Elephants and their leader, Mary Carr (Doherty). Meanwhile, Graham plays Sugar Goodson, a ruthless bare-knuckle fighter loosely inspired by a real figure of the same name. 'I just felt that, because it took place in the 1880s in London, that was an opportunity to tell that fantastic story of hardship and triumph and marry that with the story of The 40 Elephants and put those two things together," Knight told the Radio Times.. The 40 Elephants were one of Britain's longest-running organised crime syndicates. First documented in 1873, though possibly dating back to the 18th century, the gang took their name from their base in Elephant and Castle, South London. As historian Brian McDonald detailed in his books Gangs of London and Alice Diamond and the 40 Elephants, they were experts in deception and shoplifting, swindling high-end West End stores such as Harrods with tactics ranging from wearing fake arms to impersonating housemaids in wealthy households. Their exploits didn't just fund their lifestyles – they set rules, too. Southwark News noted in 2015 that the gang had a strict Hoister's Code, which forbade drinking before a job, wearing stolen clothes, or talking to the police. While many gang members' names are historically accurate, A Thousand Blows plays with the timeline. Mary Carr, born in 1862, is depicted as the gang's leader in the 1880s, though the group peaked decades later. Alice Diamond (played by Darci Shaw), another key character, was only born in 1896 but appears alongside Carr in the show. In reality, the gang was at its most formidable in the 1920s, even forcing smaller criminal outfits to pay them protection money. Despite historical liberties, The 40 Elephants remain a fascinating anomaly in British crime history – perhaps the only gang to have inspired a inspired a cocktail bar in their name. Unlike the Peaky Blinders or the Kray twins, Hezekiah Moscow is a largely forgotten figure. But his story – discovered by A Thousand Blows star Graham and his wife, Hannah Walters – is just as remarkable. Graham recalled being shown an 'amazing' photograph of Moscow, describing him as looking 'regal' and full of 'humility and dignity.' According to extensive research by historian Sarah Elizabeth Cox, Moscow was a Jamaican migrant who arrived in England in the 1880s intending to become a lion tamer but found success in boxing instead. Fighting under the pseudonym 'Ching Hook' or 'Ching Ghook,' his alternate name suggests mixed heritage – something reflected in A Thousand Blows, where Moscow speaks Mandarin thanks to his Chinese grandmother. By 1882, he had gained recognition in the East London boxing scene and became a minor celebrity, making headlines for his powerful performances in the city's rowdy, underground fight venues. But boxing wasn't his only talent – Moscow was also a music hall singer and a lion tamer at the Shoreditch Aquarium. His circus career, however, led to controversy. He was charged by the RSPCA for 'cruelly ill-treating' four bears in his care – a rare documented detail in an otherwise elusive personal history. Despite his prominence, little is known about Moscow's later years, adding an air of mystery to his story. He was accompanied in London by his friend Alec Munroe, played in A Thousand Blows by Francis Lovehall (Small Axe). Munroe, another Caribbean-born boxer, struggled to find the same success as Moscow. His life was tragically cut short in 1885 when he was stabbed to death in Spitalfields at the age of 35. Although A Thousand Blows is set more than a century ago, its themes remain timeless. Migration, survival, and the struggle for identity are as relevant today as they were in the 1880s. ' A Thousand Blows is about somebody who comes aboard a ship and arrives in a sprawling city that has no mercy and no pity,' Knight told the Radio Times. 'Human beings don't change. Love, jealousy, hatred, it's always there.'
Telegraph
17-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
A Thousand Blows, review: Peaky Blinders' Steven Knight's brutal new drama may be his best yet
It used to be thought that viewers tuned into period drama just to look at it. Wasn't life wonderful in the 19th century? What better way to spend a Sunday night than revelling in the vistas and the dances and the Palladian facades? Steven Knight 's period dramas, however, have proved that viewers don't care so much about the look of a time and place as they do about the energy. Shows like Peaky Blinders and SAS Rogue Heroes may take place in the past but they are alive now, pummelling you with personalities and plot. At their best they are roller coaster-ride unstoppable: just as you start to ask whether this kind of thing really happened in this place all those years ago, you're swept away in a whirlwind of character and capers. At a time when a superfluity of choice means the worst thing television can be is dull, Knight's dramas never are (which is probably why he is asked to write so many of them.) A Thousand Blows, his new series for Disney+ 'inspired by true life stories', may be his best yet. It brings to life a late 19th-century East London that positively crackles with nefarious possibility. Into this maelstrom it hurls Mary Carr (Erin Doherty) and her 40 Elephants gang, a group of female pickpockets with eyes on bigger things. It then adds Hezekiah Moscow (Malachi Kirby) and Alec Munroe (Francis Lovehall), best friends from Jamaica who are fresh off the boat. They soon find themselves thrust into the criminal underbelly of London's thriving bare-knuckle boxing scene. Put Hezekiah in cahoots with 'Queen'' Mary, and set them both up against Stephen Graham 's Sugar Goodson, the self-styled alpha of the East End fight game, and you have precisely the kind of period tinderbox into which Knight loves to throw a match. What follows is brutal, and while A Thousand Blows deserves its five stars, viewers should be aware that it hails from the Raging Bull school of blood and sputum. It is a telling tale from the streaming age that this amount of stark violence should have found a home on a channel with Walt Disney's name on the masthead, but that's for another time... But if you can get past the sickening blows in their thousands (and we can't say we weren't warned) then this is blockbuster television. Knight is not normally one for subtlety, but here even the plot about the Jamaican immigrants fuelled by loathing of their red-coated colonial oppressors is deftly handled. The historian David Olusoga is listed as an executive producer and anyone who has read his excellent Black and British – A Forgotten History will sense his guiding hand. History and issues, however, are grace notes compared to the chorus of wonderful characters, and it's with its roster of ne'er do wells that A Thousand Blows hits the jackpot. Peaky Blinders propelled Cillian Murphy to the Hollywood A-List and a Best Actor Oscar. A Thousand Blows might just do the same for Erin Doherty. Her Mary Carr is a cockney Boudicca with a killer stare, an instant feminist icon (who would probably laugh hard and then shoot you if you told her that). She steals whatever she wants, including the show and probably next year's Bafta statuette. It is a sensational performance in a captivating, lawless stampede of a TV show.
