Dope Girls head to BBC One

FIRST LOOK: Julianne Nicholson and Eliza Scanlen travel back to 1918 Soho for Dope Girls, a BBC series set in the world of illicit underground nightclubs.

The six-part drama opens at the end of the First World War. 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.

Nicholson (Mare of Easttown) plays Kate Galloway, a single mother who establishes a nightclub amidst the hedonistic uproar of post-First World War London, embracing a life of criminal activities with the dedicated aim of providing for her daughter Evie (Eilidh Fisher).

Scanlen (Little Women) 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. It’s here that she meets Billie Cassidy (Umi Myers), a dazzling bohemian dancer, whose life is irrevocably changed by Kate’s arrival

The series also stars Michael Duke, Ian Bonar, Dustin Demri-Burns, Geraldine James, Nabhaan Rizwan, Priya Kansara, Jordan Kouamé, Will Keen and Sebastian Croft.

Produced by Bad Wolf (His Dark Materials) in association with Sony Pictures Television, filming recently concluded in Wales.

The series is created by writer Polly Stenham (That Face, Julie, Neon Demon) and Alex Warren (Eleanor), with Shannon Murphy (Babyteeth) as lead director and executive producer.

Stenham and Warren are also executive producers alongside Bad Wolf’s Kate Crowther and Jane Tranter, Murphy, Michael Lesslie for Storyteller Productions, writer Matthew Barry and Rebecca Ferguson for the BBC.

Miranda Bowen (Women In Love) has directed later episodes. Directors of Photography include Annika Summerson and Carlos Catalan, while Sherree Philips (Babyteeth) is production designer. Ado Yoshizaki Cassuto is the producer. Casting is by Julie Harkin and Nathan Toth.

Coming soon to BBC One and BBC iPlayer, SPT will handle international distribution.

tagged in: Alex Warren, Bad Wolf, BBC iPlayer, BBC One, Dope Girls, Eliza Scanlen, Julianne Nicholson, Polly Stenham, Shannon Murphy, Sony Pictures Television, Storyteller Productions