A Thousand Blows
Created, written and executive produced by Peaky Blinders’ Steven Knight, A Thousand Blows follows best friends Hezekiah Moscow (Malachi Kirby) and Alec Munroe (Francis Lovehall) arrive in 1880s London with only a few coins in their pockets and grand hopes of making better lives for themselves. In a bid to earn money, Hezekiah enters a bareknuckle boxing match against infamous East End kingpin Henry “Sugar” Goodson (Stephen Graham), which consequently garners the attention of Mary Carr (Erin Doherty), leader of the all-women gang The Forty Elephants. With Mary aiming to use Hezekiah to further her own ambitions while Goodson plans to stop the newcomer from aligning with his competitors, the friends find themselves thrust into the heart of the city’s criminal underbelly. The result is a thoroughly entertaining, but sometimes uneven, drama that showcases Knight’s keen eye for crafting compelling settings and characters.
The first episode concerns itself with establishing the setting when the friends arrive in the city’s East End. It’s a dreary place where crime runs rampant, the police are violent, and people are discriminated against for all sorts of reasons. Survival depends on finding the right kind of friends, and for Hezekiah and Alec that is Mr Lao (Jason Tobin), a sympathetic denizen who offers them a place to stay. Community plays a key role in this series as the characters fight to carve out a life for themselves within a society that’s rigged against them, with an early interaction between Hezikiah and a ringmaster who promised him employment underscoring the racism they face.
Kirby and Lovehall bring an irresistible energy to the show that matches its upbeat soundtrack. The pair are wonderful to watch whenever they’re on screen and their playful charm instantly wins viewers over. By striking a balance between hardened gangster and compassionate leader, Doherty is likewise excellent here. However, it’s Graham who steals the spotlight as the ferocious cockney boxer. It’s somewhat disappointing, then, that an aimless plot robs the show of its momentum on more than one occasion as it juggles between its different subplots.
A Thousand Blows is another winner from Knight. Though it occasionally trips up on its scattered plot, its ensemble cast bring more than enough personality and likeability to the table to make the creator’s latest outing worth watching.
Andrew Murray
A Thousand Blows is released on Disney+ on 21st February 2025.
Watch the trailer for A Thousand Blows here:
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