Airdate: Boardwalk Empire

One of the most anticipated new dramas of 2011, Boardwalk Empire, will premiere on Showcase in March.

With all the names attached to this period piece it has rightfully attracted considerable buzz.

But be warned, it isn’t expected to come to SBS until 2012.

From The Sopranos Emmy-winning writer Terence Winter and Oscar-winning direct Martin Scorcese comes this excellent drama series set in 1920’s Atlantic City, charting the birth and rise of organised crime, as Prohibition is imminent and everyone is stocking up on alcohol.

Scorsese directs Steve Buscemi as Enoch “Nucky” Thompson, Atlantic City’s undisputed tsar at a time when Prohibition proved to be a major catalyst for organised crime. Equal parts politician and gangster, Nucky and his lieutenants, including an ambitious young WWI veteran, Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt), ruled during a time when illegal alcohol opened up highly lucrative opportunities for bootleggers and distributors.

Inspired by portions of Nelson Johnson’s Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times and Corruption of Atlantic City, the drama focuses on the inner circle of an underworld icon as he presides over notorious backroom politics, vicious power struggles, a constant onslaught by the Feds and his own insatiable appetite for women, profits and power. All while he addresses the Women’s Temperance League and condemns alcohol.

The talented cast includes Gosford Park’s Kelly MacDonald, The Wire’s Michael Kenneth Williams, A Serious Man’s Michael Stuhlbarg, Gretchen Mol, Dabney Coleman, Paz de la Huerta and Shea Whigham.

It premieres 7:30pm Sunday March 27th on Showcase.