5 reasons to get excited about Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight’s new show

A Thousand Blows is a period drama from the man behind Peaky Blinders – here’s why you should get excited about the gritty Disney series, which launches in 2025.

Steven Knight enjoyed huge success as the creator and showrunner of Peaky Blinders, which ran for six seasons, and will soon be followed by a spinoff Peaky Blinders movie.

But between that show and film, Knight has crafted another period piece, titled A Thousand Blows, about bare-knuckle boxing in Victorian London, as well as an all-female gang of thieves known as the Forty Elephants.

The first two episodes debuted at the London Film Festival, and while we won’t be reviewing them until closer to release on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK, here’s why you should be tuning in via quotes from Knight and his cast during the post-screening Q&A.

A Thousand Blows is based on three amazing true stories

A Thousand Blows revolves around a fascinating trio of central characters, who all existed in real life. Sugar Goodson (Stephen Graham) was a feared bare-knuckle boxer, while Mary Carr (Erin Doherty) was the self-styled Queen of crime syndicate the Forty Elephants.

The third character – Hezekiah Moscow (Malachi Kirby) – arrived in the East End of London from Jamaica, with plans to start a new life. But early in A Thousand Blows, he finds himself coming to blows with Goodson, and tempted into a life of crime by Carr.

Moscow is ostensibly the show’s protagonist, and Steven Knight said he believes it’s important for historical dramas to tell such multicultural tales, by asking, “Why would you ignore 75% of the stories?”

Actor Kirby also felt this was a unique take, saying, “There’s not a lot of times, maybe not ever, that I’ve seen Jamaicans portrayed as intelligent gentlemen. He fights out of circumstance. He’s not a brute. He’s strong, because he has to be strong, which is a lot of our stories.”

The cast is “extraordinary”

Director Nick Murphy discussed the show’s incredible ensemble – which also includes Daniel Mays, Tom Davis, and Hannah Walters – and how they rose to the challenge of bringing Knight’s scripts to life.

“Steve’s an astonishing writer for loads of reasons, and everybody knows that and it’s well-established,” said Murphy. “I think he’s a unique writer in the way that he brings a lyricism to grit. It always still feels grounded, and yet it has a lyricism.

“That’s actually really hard to act. And I think the other directors will back me up on this – our cast are extraordinary at bringing that to life, and enjoying the lyricism, and yet always remaining a real person in the room.”

How those actors kept it authentic

Stephen Graham explained how the actors thoroughly researched their roles, before throwing that work away for the sake of authenticity.

“For all of us, I think what we did is researched as much as we could,” revealed Graham. “We looked through the history books and found things within these characters that resonated with us.

“But we also did a lot of stuff together. We created backstories. Steve spoke to us individually at times… we spent a lot of time building our back stories and lives. We really looked at where these people had come from. They were survivors.

“You learn and you learn and you learn, and do your homework, but then you have to throw it away. Because you take what’s on the page, and you have wonderful directors, who create a place for you to be able to play.

“That was the beauty of it. That was the joy. All of that research gets thrown away, and you play the truth of what’s happening in that room, in that situation there and then, and play it as authentically as you can.”

Truth is stranger than fiction in A Thousand Blows

Historical accuracy was paramount for Knight and his team, and he explained that “the best way to do it is not to go to history books, but newspapers, court case transcripts, or stuff like that. Where you actually find out what really happened. What really happened is always far, far better than anything you could make up.

“Life is weird and random and strange things happen. You often have to get rid of them as nobody would ever believe them. But it’s trying to get as close to the randomness of reality as you can.”

Knight continued: “As regards what’s real and what’s not, I always think that the stuff that you make up is really predictable. Because a logical mind has thought of it. But reality is not logical. So I think you’re helped if you go into what really happened, and how it happened, and how people actually behaved.”

The stakes couldn’t be higher

“Everybody in this story is fighting for life.” That’s how Steven Knight described the story to Nick Murphy, and why so much talent got involved with the show.

Murphy elaborated on that theme by saying, “The reason the events of it have such jeopardy is despite the flowery way some of them are speaking, you genuinely feel one slip – like Mary says – one slip, and London will kill you.

“There’s no social security. There’s no backup. Everybody knows that one slip and it’s done… these women get caught, they’ll hang.”

A Thousand Blows launches on Hulu and Disney+ in 2025, when we’ll write more about what we saw. Before then, you can check out our list of new shows streaming on Disney+, as well as everything we know about the Peaky Blinders movie.