Thomas Roach chats with Steven Knight about his new series Taboo starring Tom Hardy…
Back in November, we had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Steven Knight about his new show Taboo, which features Tom Hardy in the lead role. When initially meeting Hardy to discuss writing Taboo, Knight took the opportunity to get Hardy involved with his movie Locke, stating that: “We came to an informal agreement that he would do Locke if I did Taboo. That’s how it began.”
Taboo was originally envisioned by Tom Hardy and his father Chips Hardy who had been developing this idea for several years. Knight revealed that the character of James Delaney and the historical period is what attracted him to the project: “I loved the possibilities of what this idea had that an adventurer goes to Africa comes back he’s done some terrible things. Then we follow his life. I’m really interested in that time period. Britain’s at war with America, Britain’s at war with France. We have all this conflict going on.”
Knight stated that he was very interested in the period of history that the show takes place in, discussing how much historic research went into the show: “It is a character piece but you’d be a fool not to find out what was going on because the best stuff comes from the truth of the period – and the real truth, for example in subsequent episodes there’s an American Spy based on a real American spy who was also a surgeon, who was also researching the dying of cotton with colours and trying to find the best sort of dye that would work best to dye sheets of cottons, so there’s three things that if you’re creating a fictional character you wouldn’t do that, you wouldn’t dare do that. But if you find that for real you put it in and that’s the madness of reality.”
Knight revealed how he felt about the popularity of television shows over the past few years: “What is happening in television is a revolution,” states Knight. “It’s sort of a golden age; the way television has changed in the past 10 – 15 years is incredible, mostly driven by contemporary American and British period. Those two things have really blossomed. I think it’s underestimated that people have better televisions now; they have big screens so it’s worth it now. The audience has changed the way it watches the telly. The proportion of people who watch it on Saturday night will be small compared to the people who eventually watch it on a box set. People do binge watch stuff and get a real feeling for it.”
I followed up by asking Knight if there was any change to the way he writes each episode knowing that people binge watch episodes. “There is an obligation to leave each episode with a hook to try and bring people back as that is just commercial sense, you want people to follow on, but I think you do have to be aware that someone’s going to find out a few minutes later when they are watching it,” he replied. “The person who did it well was Dickens. Everything was serialized but when you read you read the book you don’t think oh what was that why was that?”
Set in 1814, Taboo follows James Keziah Delaney, a man who has been to the ends of the earth and come back irrevocably changed. Believed to be long dead, he returns home to London from Africa in 1814 to inherit what is left of his father’s shipping empire and rebuild a life for himself. But when his father’s legacy is revealed to be a poisoned chalice and enemies lurk 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 an explosively colourful tale of love and treachery.
Taboo will premiere on BBC One on January 7th and on FX on January 10th and sees Tom Hardy leading a cast that also includes Michael Kelly (Everest), Jonathan Pryce (Game of Thrones), Oona Chaplin (Black Mirror), David Hayman (The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas), Jessie Buckley (Shades of Love), Ashley Walters (Bullet Boy), Ed Hog (Anonymous), Leo Bill (Alice in Wonderland), Christopher Fairbank (Guardians of the Galaxy), Richard Dixon (The King’s Speech), and Nicholas Woodeson (The Living and the Dead).
