Mob rule
H
igh-end television drama has become ubiquitous. Even so, it’s unlikely that TV audiences have seen anything quite like Sky Atlantic’s new crime thriller, Gangs of London, a brooding, tense, cinematic tour de force that is most definitely not for the squeamish. Described variously as a cross between Peaky Blinders and The Irishman, and “revoltingly inventive”, the nine-part series stars Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders), Sope Dirisu (Humans), Colm Meaney (Star Trek), Lucian Msamati (His Dark Materials), Michelle Fairley (Game of Thrones), Paapa Essiedu (Press), and Pippa Bennett-Warner (Harlots). The story begins as rival international gangs jostle to fill a power vacuum created when the head of London’s most powerful crime clan, the Wallaces, is assassinated. “The proposition was very clear,” says executive producer Thomas Benski,
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An all-star cast leads Sky Atlantic’s new action thriller, Gangs of London. Steve Clarke dodges the blows co-founder of Pulse Films, Gangs of London’s main producer. “We wanted to make something we felt had never been done before, at least on British television. I think we’ve achieved that.” The series was created by the award-winning film-maker behind The Raid martial arts movies, Gareth Evans, and his long-time collaborator, Matt Flannery, and inspired by a video game of the same name optioned by Pulse Films. “Using action as a story driver is not something you typically find in British TV. Gareth is a visionary action director. The ambitious narrative of creating this Shakespearian version of modern
London is unique,” claims Benski. “Thanks to our casting director, Kelly Valentine Hendry, we assembled a cast of sophisticated, mostly classically trained, actors who could contrast that genre world with the sophistication and prestige that this drama offers.” Despite his distinguished pedigree (which includes directing period horror film Apostle for Netflix), Gangs of London is the first time Evans has made a TV series. “Gareth went to a different world when he was developing this show,” explains Lucas Ochoa, another of the executive producers. “He’s immersed in cinema history – Asian cinema, Hong Kong action cinema and Japanese art cinema. He brought to bear that vast range of references, which is unusual for television.” Certainly, the fight sequences have an almost balletic quality that is rare to encounter on the small screen. But perhaps it is Evans’s menacing creation of a hyper-violent and deeply unsettling London that really punches through.
