★★★★★ 0/5

Airdate: Taboo

BBC First makes Australian viewers wait 6 months to see new drama with Tom Hardy.

6
Leave a comment

Dark UK period drama Taboo is getting a dual premiere on both BBC First and Showcase on July 17, to piggyback on Game of Thrones.

The series, created by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders) with Tom Hardy and his father Chips Hardy, is set in 1814. Tom Hardy plays a man returning to England with fourteen stolen diamonds after twelve years in Africa.

But Australian viewers will also be kept waiting. The series premiered in the UK in January.

Tim Christlieb, Director of Branded Services, said; “Taboo has been a hit in the UK and US with a broad audience and has seen a particularly strong reach with younger viewers who have been attracted by Hardy and the social media buzz. We believe that it will hold huge appeal for the Game of Thrones audience who may not necessarily be regular viewers of BBC First. We are delighted to be able to collaborate with Showcase to maximise the audience for this enthralling show on what will be a huge night of appointment-to-view drama on Foxtel.”

Taboo follows James Keziah Delaney, a man who has been to the ends of the earth and comes back irrevocably changed. Believed to be long dead, he returns home to London from Africa to inherit what is left of his father’s shipping empire and rebuild a life for himself. But his father’s legacy is a poisoned chalice, and with enemies lurking in every dark corner, James must navigate increasingly complex territories to avoid his own death sentence. Encircled by conspiracy, murder and betrayal, a dark family mystery unfolds in a combustible tale of love and treachery.

In addition to Tom Hardy, Taboo’s star-studded cast also includes Jonathan Pryce (Game of Thrones), Oona Chaplin (Game of Thrones), Stephen Graham (Boardwalk Empire), Michael Kelly (House of Cards), Jessie Buckley (War and Peace), Tom Hollander (The Night Manager), Jason Watkins (W1A), Franka Potente (The Bourne Identity), Jefferson Hall (Vikings) and Mark Gatiss (Sherlock).

Taboo is created by Steven Knight with Tom Hardy and Chips Hardy, who is also the show’s consulting producer. It is produced by Ridley Scott’s Scott Free London and Tom Hardy’s Hardy Son and Baker. Executive producers are Ridley Scott and Kate Crowe for Scott Free, Tom Hardy and Dean Baker for Hardy Son & Baker, and Steven Knight, with Timothy Bricknell producing. Taboo is directed by Kristoffer Nyholm (Eps. 1-4) and Anders Engström (Eps. 5-8).

6 Responses

  3. Yeah, I think GoT is the right lead-in/partner for Taboo. Although with the 5 GoT alumni [that I can think of off the top of my head, all but 1 deceased] it’ll be like they were never killed in Westeros.

    Honestly though, having seen the series while I was in the UK, if you’ve not already seen it, it all seems very higgeldy-piggeldy in the early stages and things really don’t start coming together until episode 5 and the noose of the denouement really tightens with David Hayman in Episode 7. So please, stick with it.

    Also – without getting too spoilery – did somebody make Jefferson Hall a special trophy?

  5. i suspect that if the BBC licensing agreement didn’t control global release dates it would have been broadcast a lot sooner but it’s not GoT so legal content viewers will have to wait. Fortunately Taboo is one of those shows that can be waited for but 6 months is testing patience a bit far.

Leave a Reply