Above: Promotional image from A Thousand Blows © Disney+
With regards to the historical accuracy of A Thousand Blows, I can only comment upon the aspects I’ve researched for my own writing. At the start of the first episode, a title screen reveals the characters were inspired by real-life people who lived in the East end of London in the nineteenth century. I’ve been informed the Forty Elephants didn’t operate under this name until the twentieth century and were known as the Forty Thieves up until this point. If you’d like to read another fictional interpretation of the Forty Thieves, I recommend The Dazzle of the Light by Georgina Clarke. Personally, the depictions of bareknuckle and gloved boxing in A Thousand Blows were in-keeping with the research I’d done. A book I found highly informative and entertaining on the subject is The Detective Wore Silk Drawers by Peter Lovesey. If you want yet another interpretation of boxing in the late nineteenth century, I’d, of course, recommend my own book, The Case of the Pugilist’s Ploy. For non-fiction books, I highly recommend Art of Boxing and Manual of Training Illustrated by Billy Edwards. Originally published in 1888, it covers the rules for both bareknuckle and gloved boxing, provides a training regime, and advice on diet, etc.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed A Thousand Blows. As you know, Ripper Street is one of my all-time favourite television series. If I were to be asked which I preferred, I’d have to say Ripper Street has retained its crown, but only because it centred around the police, and I’ve always been fascinated with the psyche and culture of policework. In all honesty, it’s difficult, and somewhat unfair, to compare the two because they’re approaching the era from two very different angles. What I would say, though, is if you enjoyed Ripper Street, you’ll enjoy A Thousand Blows. As for my thoughts on season 2 of A Thousand Blows: I felt the storylines were pretty much resolved at the end of season 1, so I’m not sure where they can take it next. As I found whilst writing The Case of the Pugilist’s Ploy, the sphere of boxing can only carry a plotline so far before you run the risk of it becoming a repetitive depiction of two men beating each other up in boxing matches. Fortunately, I had many character subplots which helped carry things along, but I’m intrigued to see how season 2 of A Thousand Blows avoids this trap without moving away from the boxing entirely.
~ T.G. Campbell, April 2025
BOXING CLEVER:
My Thoughts on A Thousand Blows
With one thing and another, my spare time has been limited over the past few years, and what spare time I do have is dedicated to writing, marketing, and spending time with friends and family. As a result, my television watching tends to consist of true crime series which have a stand-alone case per episode, or nostalgic series like Murder, She Wrote. When I saw the trailer for A Thousand Blows, though, I knew I had to watch it. Not only was it set in the time period I’m most interested in (the nineteenth century), but it centred around boxing. The sixth Bow Street Society book, The Case of the Pugilist’s Ploy, explores the conflict between the traditional (and brutal) bareknuckle boxing and the emerging (artful and scientific) gloved sport. Therefore, I was curious to see how A Thousand Blows measured up to what I knew about boxing in this era. In this month’s blog, I give my thoughts on this series in a no-spoiler review, and my musings on what season 2 could bring.
Let’s begin with the basics. Visually, A Thousand Blows is stunning. I watched it on my ten-inch Amazon Fire tablet with my headphones in and the lights off. There’s an epic quality to the cinematography and soundtrack that wouldn’t be amiss in a cinema. The sets and costumes are well-designed, to the point where I could almost smell the dirt, sweat, stale beer, tobacco, and perfume in the bareknuckle boxing scenes at the dingy East End pub, The Blue Coat Boy. In contrast, the scenes at the West End Boxing Club were opulent, clean, and well-lit.
The series follows the lives, loves, and conflicts of three characters who’ve been marginalised by society and the world at large: Hezekiah Moscow (played by Malachi Kirby), a Jamaican recently arrived in London with his friend, Alec (played by Francis Lovehall), who is seeking his fortune, Mary Carr (played by Erin Doherty), the queen of the all-female gang of thieves, the Forty Elephants, and Henry “Sugar” Goodson (played by Stephen Graham), veteran bareknuckle boxer and co-proprietor of The Blue Coat Boy pub. Despite the apparent optimism of each character’s situation at the beginning of the series, it’s clear their circumstances and social status threaten to be a constant bar to the better lives and successes they dream and aim for.
The prejudiced attitudes they encounter are depicted in a matter-of-fact way without the viewer feeling like they’re being preached to. In other words, they’re presented as part of the characters’ realities that they have to deal with each time they’re confronted with them, and the way they deal with them develops the characters further, thereby making them complex, rounded people in the viewer’s mind. Hezekiah encounters the most racism and prejudice, and a scene involving a cage at London’s Zoological Gardens is particularly effective in making the point without being patronising. It would’ve been easy for A Thousand Blows to depict Hezekiah, Mary, and “Sugar” as two-dimensional metaphors of the oppressed groups they represent. Yet, each individual is presented as a rich tapestry of thoughts, feelings, dreams, disappointments, etc that makes them relatable on a basic human level.
Bow Street Society logo artwork by Heather Curtis: mouseink@gmail.com
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