‘A Thousand Blows’ — immersive period crime drama with star power

• ‘Peaky Blinders’ creator Steven Knight focuses on all-female crime gang in Disney+ show

Updated 28 February 2026

Adam Grundey

February 28, 2026 09:47

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DUBAI: If you need someone to create a historical drama based on a real-life notorious crime gang, who better than “Peaky Blinders” showrunner Steven Knight? And if you need someone to play a shady operator vibrating with pent-up menace that threatens to explode into violence at any time, who better than the always-compelling Stephen Graham?

So Disney+’s “A Thousand Blows” has two huge pluses in its favor — great showrunner and great lead (or co-lead, to be fair). But that also means great expectations that can be tough to match.

The show is set in London’s East End in the 1880s and the notorious gang is the Forty Elephants — an all-female crime syndicate led by Mary Carr (played by Erin Doherty) whose main focus was shoplifting. Carr has close ties with Henry “Sugar” Goodson (Graham), self-styled king of the area’s popular-but-illegal bare-knuckle boxing scene, but their alliance is on shaky ground as her schemes threaten to bring unwanted attention from the police to the neighborhood.

Into their orbit comes Hezekiah Moscow (Malachi Kirby), newly arrived from Jamaica and in need of money. Moscow is a phenomenally gifted fighter, and the ageing Sugar quickly comes to see him as a threat to his fearsome reputation. Carr, meanwhile, sees him as both potential love interest and an asset she can exploit in her daring plot for a major heist. All three share a common goal: to rise above the low expectations society has of them.

Graham, impressively beefed up for the role, is customarily excellent as Sugar, a man whose behavior no-one — not the viewer and not even himself — can easily predict. Kirby is equally compelling, balancing confidence and vulnerability in his portrayal of a man sure of his own abilities, but unsure of those around him. And Doherty convinces as Carr — outwardly as tough as Sugar, but it’s clear that the façade of emotionlessness and ruthlessness that has made her such a respected and feared adversary is a hard one to maintain.

The story reels you in quickly. The East End of the late 19th century is brought vividly to life, and there’s plenty of action from the start, but the latter has perhaps come at the cost of character development. The rest of the Elephants, for example, feel one-dimensional (in the four hours we’ve seen so far, anyway), with little backstory to flesh them out. Still, “A Thousand Blows” is hugely enjoyable — though perhaps not for the squeamish; the violence is constant and realistic — and Graham once again shows he’s one of the finest actors of his generation.