‘A Thousand Blows’ Cast And Creator Discuss Their New Historical Drama

Steven Knight, the creator of Peaky Blinders and Rogue Heroes remains one of the busiest showrunners working at the moment. His latest historical drama series, A Thousand Blows, is now available to stream on Disney+ and stars Stephen Graham, Malachi Kirby and Erin Doherty.

Based on true events, the story is set in East London in the 1880s and follows the story of Henry ’Sugar’ Goodson and Hezekiah Moscow and their careers in the illegal boxing world. In the meantime, Mary Carr, the queen of the Forty Elephants, a women-only gang, sees her life and goals disturbed by Sugar’s and Moscow’s activities and rivalry.

Sugar, the king of bare knuckle fighting is feared by every single one of his opponents in and outside the ring. However, with the arrival of Ezekiah who first came from Jamaica to London to become a lion tamer, Sugar understands that the young man could be a threatening adversary.

Sugar’s arrival is cleverly built up throughout the first episode. Indeed, the character only appears towards the end of the episode when he is about to enter the ring, and this suspense contributes to a sense of imminent danger. By the end of the episode, the audience is eager to meet the antihero, the brute, that everyone is talking about.

Graham bulked up for the role and his impressive stature is brilliantly filmed in slow-motion when he first arrives on the ring, with a low-angle shot of his tattooed back, as he steps out of the darkness and walks towards the ring, as the crowd acclaims the undefeated champion.

I asked Knight about the writing process of this scene, and how he built up the tension to prepare the audience for Sugar’s arrival. He said, “Well, it’s a very good observation because you can only do that for someone, if you know that when they arrive, they’re going to deliver what you want. And with Stephen, you know it’s going to happen. I wrote it before he bulked up, so before I knew what he was going to look like. He looked incredible, so with someone like him, you know you can build it up and build it up again and know that the punchline of the whole thing, when he finally turns around and you see him, he’s going to be amazing. And that’s exactly what he is.”

Sugar’s violent nature is depicted as soon as he enters the ring and doesn’t let his opponent hit him one single time. His way of fighting tells us right away the kind of man that he is.

Graham said, “The first punch Sugar ever throws is when the other man throws a punch and Sugar uses his head to break his hand. So instantly, without me even saying a word, it shows you the kind of man that Sugar is through his physical attributes and what he will do in order to win. Once he breaks that man’s hand, he knows he can’t be hit by that man, so he beats him.”

I asked the actor what his reaction was when he saw himself as Sugar for the first time, as spectators are not only impressed by his physical change, but also by how much Sugar embodies the words danger and violence. He said, “Oh nice! I couldn’t believe it! The true colors, the true identity comes out on that ring. He will bite, he will pinch, he will poke, he will headbutt, he’ll do whatever it takes in order to win.”

During the interview, Graham told Kirby, “Because you never really see your back, do you?” The actor also noted that in order to achieve this look, “All treats had gone out the window.”

He added: “Oh no, actually I was allowed 5 Maltesers every night. I love Maltersers, I looked forward to them Maltersers with my yogurt. Anyway, long story short, when I saw that kind of images of my back, ‘I was like ‘Oh s— that’s me?’. But also I put my arms up and walked differently as Sugar so that’s also a physical element. But I’m glad you were impressed by it, I was too!”

Kirby added that if we can see what kind of man Sugar when he fights, we can say the same for Moscow, a gentle, caring man of honor, who doesn’t fight to hurt.

He said, “Ezekiah wasn’t a boxer, he was a fighter, he became a boxer to survive and as a necessity, but he came to London to become a lion tamer, he was a performer and wanted to be on the stage. His style came from that same heart posture, that he wants to entertain. And because he wasn’t a boxer, it allowed me to explore a style that wasn’t bound by any rules of boxing. He was on the defensive, I saw him as a kind of matador and when we go in the ring, Sugar was the bull and I was happy to get out of the way with Stephen! I throw a punch in when I can. The style pretty much came from the truth of those circumstances.”

He added: “He fights honorably but also lives honorably, so I wanted to hold on to the integrity of being a man of honor in a space where someone else doesn’t hold the same values.”

I asked Knight how writing a fighting scene informs him as well as the showrunner. He said, “It’s a very interesting thing, because it is a conversation with fists if you like, and it’s very, very direct. My part is the easy part, I just write the beginning, the middle and the end, that’s who you think is going to win. And then some poor people have to get in the ring and do it. The people who choreograph the fight, the coordinators, are the best on the planet. It looks so amazing, it’s very easy to do this stuff badly, and they did it perfectly.”

While Sugar is a very violent man, who even almost beat up to death his own brother, this character joins the ranks of the many hard, violent, yet very complex and human main characters that Knight created in his previous shows -like Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders, or Paddy Mayne in Rogue Heroes.

Knight said, “It’s always people outside, looking at your work, who notice the pattern. I mean it’s a very obvious pattern I suppose, but I tend to want to write about working class people and stories about people who are trying to escape, and that usually means there is some sort of physical combat involved. And I do like to find a good man doing bad things for a good reason. They’re definitely doing bad things but fundamentally they’re good and they will tell themselves that they’re doing it for the right reason, for their family or those around and for their protection. We, as observers, can see that it’s bad, but we sort of understand they’re doing it for the right reasons.”

However, in Knight’s dramas, men aren’t the only one in charge. Indeed, the showrunner always writes about very powerful, badass female characters such as Polly in Peaky Blinders, played by the late Helen McCrory, Eve Mansour (Sofia Boutella) in Rogue Heroes, and Mary Carr (Erin Doherty) in A Thousand Blows. “I’m beyond men” declares Carr in the first episode of the show. This sentence only is a testament to Carr’s personality and how much power she holds. Carr and her gang are indeed as feared and respected as Sugar is.

Knight explained why these women were not just the result of his imagination, but rather inspired by the women that surrounded him as a child.

He said, “Some of it is observations from… I mean, my upbringing was a working-class environment, working with horses, my dad was a farrier, I had lots of brothers and sisters, so it was sort of a tempestuous sort of environment. But in those circumstances, in actual fact, the men, you know they could be quite violent and tough but when it came down to it, things were sort of run by the women, by the mothers and the grandmothers and the aunties, who were terrifying. Everybody was terrified by them, including the men, and crucially, they usually ran, controlled the money.”

He added: “So there was this sort of duality of what you think was an environment that was very patriarchal, but it sort of wasn’t really. There was a lot of fighting going on and men seemed to be in charge apparently, but actually the things were run by the women. So, it’s not like I’m trying to make a point, it’s just looking out the window and seeing the real thing and reflecting how things actually were. I’m sure it’s the same in so many environments around the world.”

Darci Shaw plays Alice Diamond in the show, the future leader of the Forty Elephants. She used to work at Harrods’ but one day, the gang stormed into the store and stole clothes, jewelry, bags and money. The young girl, who was admiring the gang from afar ended up leaving her job to join the gang. For Knight, the possibility to escape is what attracted Diamond in the first place.

He said, “Alice Diamond is based on a real person and if, when, we get to series 3, she becomes a really important character, which is why I wanted to track her journey from the very beginning. But it’s the idea of escaping, when somebody is standing all day long, being nice to people who aren’t very nice. Living in Covent Garden, the bad bit, and here come these women who just don’t give a sh— and just come in and do what they want and they’re dressed amazingly. And you look at them and think ‘I want that!’”

A Thousand Blows won’t let you rest for a second. The audience is either completely immersed in the fights taking place in and outside the ring or in the different heists organized the Elephants. But just like in any other glorious drama by Steven Knight, the tension and the rhythm of it all is elevated by an incredible soundtrack.

Knight said, “It’s interesting that you talk about the rythm of the show because for me, there is definitely a rhythm through the 6o minutes where you gotta be aware of what the rhythm is, and when you need to speed it up and slow it down. Music for that is so useful, it’s almost like cheating, where you just go ‘Bang’ -end the scene and ‘Bang’, then comes the music that tells the story and to have those two horses running next to each other is really useful. The way I’ll do it is I’ll either specify the track or to begin with, I’ll just say ‘Fast driving music’ or ‘Slow driving music’. Something that suggests the way the rhythm can move. If you got that music drive, and a montage, you can tell a lot of story quickly without words, just by putting it together with the music over it.”