BBC show being hailed ‘the next Peaky Blinders’ contender for best TV of 2025-Pierra Willix-Entertainment – Metro

A new BBC crime drama is already being compared to Peaky Blinders (Picture: BBC/ Bad Wolf/ Sony Pictures Television/ Kevin Baker)

A new drama series that ‘details the birth of the modern nightlife industry’ in post-World War I London is already drawing comparisons to Peaky Blinders.

Due to air early this year, Dope Girls has been described as a ‘spiritual successor’ to the hit period crime drama, which ran between 2013 until 2022.

This new BBC series has been ‘inspired by a forgotten time in history’ and has promised to ‘bring the Soho streets of 1918 vividly to life’.

Also set in the direct aftermath of WWI, the six-part series comes from the producers behind Doctor Who, Industry and I Hate Suzie.

The synopsis has teased: ‘It is the end of World War One. As Britain celebrates the Armistice on the streets of London, men return from the front expecting to rejoin society and pick up where they left off – but a newly empowered generation of women are loath to simply return to the kitchen.

‘Using Soho’s expanding illicit underground clubland scene as their playground, women explore previously unimaginable opportunities on either side of the law.’

Dope Girls details the ‘birth of the modern nightlife industry’ in post-World War I London (Picture: BBC/ Bad Wolf/ Sony Pictures Television/ Kevin Baker)

Dope Girls stars Julianne Nicholson as Kate Galloway, a single mother who establishes a nightclub amidst the hedonistic uproar of post-World War One London and embraces a life of criminal activities in order to be able to provide for her daughter Evie (Eilidh Fisher).

Meanwhile Eliza Scanlen plays Violet Davies, one of the first wave of female officers, who is assigned to go undercover and investigate the illicit world of underground Soho nightclubs.

Billie Cassidy (Umi Myers) is a ‘dazzling bohemian dancer whose life is irrevocably changed by Kate’s arrival’.

The series is based on real life figures including Billie Carleton, Brilliant Chang, Edgar Manning, and Kate Meyrick.

Julianne Nicholson stars as Kate Galloway, a single mother who establishes a nightclub (Picture: BBC/ Bad Wolf/ Sony Pictures Television/ Kevin Baker)

Eliza Scanlen plays an undercover police officer (Picture: BBC/ Bad Wolf/ Sony Pictures Television/ Kevin Baker)

The later was known as the ‘Night Club Queen’ who owned several nightclubs in London in the 1920s and was believed to have earned around £500,000 (£17million today) from her hotspots.

Throughout her life she served five prison sentences and was the inspiration for the character Ma Mayfield in Evelyn Waugh’s novel, Brideshead Revisited.

When the show was first reported to be in development, an insider told The Sun: ‘Her story isn’t well known and deserves to be in the spotlight.

‘This isn’t just a female version of Peaky Blinders, it’s a stand-alone story that will shock millions.’

Dope Girls is coming to the BBC.

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