If you’re drunk on the swaggering, sweary version of history seen in House of Guinness or Peaky Blinders, then you’ve probably got a taste for Steven Knight’s work.
Netflix series House of Guinness is inspired by the true story behind the famous Irish beer, and serves up a foaming pint of Knight’s delicious recipe: cunning, violent men and women doing dirty deals from street level to stately homes, with subtexts of class and politics set to a brash modern soundtrack.
As writer and producer, Knight pioneered the style in Peaky Blinders and refined it in recent series like SAS: Rogue Heroes and A Thousand Blows.
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Before pouring out those hit shows, however, Knight collaborated with A-list star Tom Hardy to create a series that was darker, stranger and more atmospheric. It’s grimy, it’s gothic, it’s Taboo.
Set in 1814, Taboo stars Hardy as James Keziah Delaney, a grim-faced adventurer coming back from the dead to shock London society.
He arrives from Africa with a bunch of secrets, a haunted stare and a mysterious claim to a piece of land that stands between the British and American empires, throwing him into a battle of wits and gunpowder with the evil East India Company.
Amid the fog and firelight, the story twists and turn, the fuse burning slowly down to explosive action scenes. It’s lurid and ludicrous, and immensely entertaining.
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Where Peaky Blinders is a trip through the industrial early twentieth century, House of Guinness takes us to the decadent Edwardian era, and A Thousand Blows takes place in Victorian times, Taboo goes back to the Regency period.
It’s the period when King George III’s madness kept him off the throne, and madness is a major theme in this series. Where Peaky Blinders sees Cillian Murphy play an ice-cold schemer, Taboo features Hardy as a hulking brute whose simmering intensity is always on the verge of volcanic force.
Along with Knight, Hardy also co-created the show with his father, Chips Hardy, which adds a weird personal edge to the feral energy he brings to the role.
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Alternately grunting or muttering poetic curses, he’s plagued by visions and driven by some kind of unknowable, unpredictable and ungodly purpose. This fearsome creature is violent and scary – but he’s also a seductive agent of chaos, raining down righteous fury upon the even more loathsome politicians, noblemen and businessmen who stand in his way.
The supporting cast is also great: Jessie Buckley and Oona Chaplin hold their own against Hardy, Jonathan Pryce and Mark Gatiss have a ball as the hiss-worthy villains, and Tom Hollander is a hoot as a dissolute chemist.
The characters come from all levels of society, making this an immersive tour of the past that isn’t unlike Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York – surely an influence on Knight’s colourful historical series.
For conjuring Taboo’s vivid, filthy world, special mention should also go to costume designer Joanna Eatwell, cinematographer Mark Patten and soundtrack composer Max Richter, all BAFTA-nominated for their work.
Jan Archivald, Erika Ökvist and Audrey Doyle won BAFTAs for hair and make-up. And the visual effects team were nominated for various awards for their work bringing bygone London to life.
You can find this 2017 series easily available to stream on BBC iPlayer and Netflix, although it looks unlikely the promised second season will ever materialise. Darker and weirder than Peaky Blinders, Taboo is a searing slice of historical action anchored by Tom Hardy at his most horribly magnetic.
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