BBC has ‘one big fear’ about historical drama hailed as the next Peaky Blinders-Pierra Willix-Entertainment – Metro

The BBC has distanced itself from claims its upcoming period crime drama Dope Girls was based on an infamous real-life figure (Picture: BBC/ Bad Wolf/ Sony Pictures Television/ Kevin Baker)

The BBC is ‘fearful’ about making links between real-life figures and characters in its upcoming period crime drama Dope Girls.

The series, which is due to be released in the coming months, has already been described as a ‘spiritual successor’ to Peaky Blinders and was also ‘inspired by a forgotten time in history’.

Set in London in the direct aftermath of WWI, the six-part series follows a ‘newly empowered generation of women are loath to simply return to the kitchen’ and instead utilise Soho’s ‘expanding illicit underground clubland scene as their playground’.

In doing so they will experience opportunities on ‘either side of the law’.

One of the show’s main characters is Kate Galloway, played by Julianne Nicholson, a single mother who establishes a nightclub and ‘embraces a life of criminal activities in order to be able to provide for her daughter’.

It’s previously been said the series was based on real-life figures including Billie Carleton, Brilliant Chang, Edgar Manning, and Kate Meyrick.

Julianne Nicholson stars as 1920s nightclub owner Kate Galloway (Picture: BBC/ Bad Wolf/ Sony Pictures Television/ Kevin Baker)

However, after Netflix found itself facing a multi-million-dollar lawsuit for saying its break-out 2024 series Baby Reindeer was ‘a true story’ at the start of each episode, the national broadcaster is reportedly being more careful in how it sells the show now.

Despite Kate’s story being very similar to that of Meyrick, who owned several nightclubs in London in the 1920s, earned around £17 million in today’s money and was sent to prison five times, the BBC has downplayed any connection.

‘The Beeb hasn’t mentioned Meyrick in any of its publicity, even though it’s pretty obvious that the two Kate’s stories are remarkably similar,’ a source told The Sun.

‘The fear is that if they state it was based on a true story, people could come forward to criticise their portrayal in a show which is packed with potentially controversial scenes of sex, violence and drugs.

‘Kate died in 1933 so couldn’t take legal action, but executives are reluctant to be seen as playing fast and loose with the truth in dramas based on real-life events.’

Netflix is currently facing a $170,000,000 lawsuit over claims made in Baby Reindeer (Picture: Ed Miller/ Netflix)

In a statement to the publication, a BBC spokesperson said that the character ‘was not Kate Meyrick’.

‘Dope Girls is inspired by a forgotten time in history and all its events and characters are fictional,’ they added.

When the show, which also stars Eliza Scanlen and Umi Myers, was first reported to be in development, an insider told The Sun that Meyrick’s story ‘isn’t well known and deserves to be in the spotlight’.

During her career, Meyrick became known as “the most dangerous woman in London” and “The Nightclub Queen” after she built an illicit empire of clubs around the capital where hedonists indulged in the booming recreational drugs market.

Metro has contacted the BBC for comment.

Dope Girls will air on the BBC soon.

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