Dope Girls (2025) is an upcoming six-part historical drama series set to premiere on BBC One on February 22, 2025. We will have to wait a while until it shows up stateside, but trust me, we are paying close attention to this one!
Inspired by Marek Kohn’s 1992 book, Dope Girls: The Birth of the British Drug Underground, the show delves into the vibrant and perilous world of London’s Soho district in the 1920s. The narrative centers on Kate Galloway (portrayed by one of my personal favorites, Julianne Nicholson), a single mother who establishes a nightclub amidst the hedonistic fervor of post-World War I London, embracing a life of criminal activities with the dedicated aim of providing for her daughter. Kate is based on the real-life “Night Club Queen” Kate Meyrick, who ruled the nightclub scene in London in the first decades of the 20th century, as well as other women in her cohort who defined Interwar-era excess.
The series has been described as a “spiritual successor” to Peaky Blinders, offering a fresh perspective on the criminal underworld through the lens of its female protagonists, so you know I am going to be watching!
Judging by the preview trailer, the vibe of the show is going to be less historically accurate and more impressionistic of the 1920s. And that’s fine! As long as the departures from the historical path make sense within the context of the storytelling, we’re generally willing to soften our views about throwing the history baby out with the accuracy bathwater.
Will you be watching Dope Girls (2025-)? Tell us in the comments!
I’ll be giving this one a miss, methinks – one look at PEAKY BLINDERS was enough for a lifetime and I’m no more keen to follow drug-peddling crooks just because they happen to be female.
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On the other hand I’ve read several BERNIE GUNTHER books recently and I don’t actually like the character (I have some unhappy suspicions that his creator & I might not see eye to eye either, although based only on his novels), so there’s no guarantee I might not give the show a shot and get sucked in anyway.
I’ll be watching. Dope Girls was one of Kate Atkinson’s sources for her book Shrines of Gaiety which I read and enjoyed recently.
I’ll be watching. Dope Girls is one of Kate Atkinson’s sources for her novel Shrines of Gaiety which I read and enjoyed recently.
Looks interesting! Never heard of it’til now. I’ll keep an eye out for it once we get it stateside!
Ooh this made me think immediately of Shrines of Gaiety which was a dark but fun read. Good to know there is a link per the above comment.
Having taken in the first episode of the show as it aired I can certainly say that it impressed me – it’s clearly well put together with a strong sense of what it wants to put over, but at least on first acquaintance most (If not all) of the lead characters would seem to be people I’m not especially keen to spend time with.
I’ll give the second episode a fair shot, but still suspect that this (Like it’s big brother PEAKY BLINDERS) is a show I’m likely to drop before it goes much further.
For the record, the costumery – when characters actually wear it, there’s a fair few ‘lingerie and not much else’ scenes by way of theatrical and fancy dress attire – seems to have a decent sense of period, but one thing that struck me immediately was that while ladies wore their hair up, hats and headscarves were in peculiarly short supply.
Still, like the characters themselves the costumes were occasionally questionable, but never boring.
As demanded by absolutely no-one and promised by your correspondent, I’m popping in to report that DOPE GIRLS continues to be Interesting well into it’s second episode (Though at this point I’m a little terrified for Miss Billie and Miss Evie, because I’m worried that Kate Galloway’s behaviour suggests some sort of Borderline Personality Disorder – especially where poor Billie is concerned – and I’m not as confident as one would like to be that this is merely dark humour).
Anyway, the PoV Police characters continue to be the Worst and this episode has some deeply, deeply worrying othering of Italian (Specifically Sicilian) characters, in a decidedly meaty style.
You’re unlikely to be bored while watching this series, but it’s not exactly light entertainment (Even by the standards of a Crime Drama).
On a separate note, TOWARDS ZERO makes a reasonably promising start – rather darker than I like my Christie (The resident detective, one Leach, is a decidedly glum, dysfunctional specimen, presumably because Superintendent Battle will not be appearing in this series and that means his bagman will have to handle the work of two men) but with a sense of style, some juicy scandal and a keen sense of foreboding.
Worth checking out, if you can get it (Oh, and it is near-Kenneth Branagh levels of Horny Agatha Christie, of that you can be assured).
Oh FFS. Ive watched just over half of the first episode before there’s a sadistic, gratuitous violation of a woman and I’m tapped out. SO tired of this.