Taboo set to return to BBC1

Scott Free Productions and Hardy Son & Baker drama Taboo has been recommissioned for a second series by BBC1 and US-broadcaster FX.

Taboo was created by Peaky Blinders writer Steven Knight but is based on a story by The Dark Knight Rises star Tom Hardy and his father Chips Hardy.

A second 8 x 60-minute series has been commissioned by director of content Charlotte Moore and drama controller Piers Wenger and is set to broadcast on BBC1 next year.

It will be produced by Ridley Scott’s Scott Free London and Tom Hardy’s Hardy Son & Baker for BBC1 and FX with Sonar Entertainment distributing worldwide outside the UK.

The executive Producers are Ridley Scott and Kate Crowe for Scott Free, Tom Hardy and Dean Baker for Hardy Son & Baker, and Steven Knight.

The first series aired on BBC1 at 9.15pm on Saturday nights and averaged a consolidated audience of 5.8m (25.4%) across its eight parts.

The BBC has given it an extended iPlayer window, releasing it as a boxset for 30 days after the final episode aired off the back of its 3.7m (19%) average overnights audience.

The BBC said today that the audience has continued to grow beyond the industry seven day cut-off for catch-up and is reaching an average of 7m after 28 days.

It claims the series is the third most watched drama on iPlayer, after Sherlock and BBC3 docudrama Murdererd by My Boyfriend.

The series stars Hardy as James Delaney, a man who was believed long dead but returns to London from Africa to inherit the remnants of his father’s shipping empire.

Knight said “Delaney will continue to explore many realities as he takes his band of misfits to a new world” in the second series.

Wenger said: “It’s been a thrill to see the audience for Taboo build over time and in such large numbers. In series two, Tom and Steve and the show’s brilliant producers are promising something daring, different but equally unmissable and I’m delighted that the BBC is partnering with FX once again to roll Taboo out to audiences across the world.”