A Thousand Blows; Britain’s Favourite Railway Stations with Si King; Tehran

“The problem with having Erin Doherty star in your TV drama is that it makes it extremely difficult to tell whether it’s any good or not. The 33-year-old is more than an impressive actor – she is a magnetic presence, able to sell the idea that she actually is her character in a way few others can (a particularly impressive feat considering her breakthrough was playing Princess Anne in The Crown). As such, Doherty’s participation in a series can elevate the premise, plot and script in a slightly confusing way. Watching the first few episodes of Steven Knight’s late-Victorian thriller A Thousand Blows, I wasn’t sure whether I was genuinely enjoying the programme or simply marvelling at Doherty’s effervescent turn as wily, tough-as-boots pickpocketing queen Mary Carr. Series two makes it easier to spot the difference.”
Rachel Aroesti, The Guardian

“A character can only explode onto the scene once. In the first series of A Thousand Blows, Disney+’s tale inspired by the true-life stories of a group of ne’er-do-wells battling for survival in the brutal East End of London in the 1880s, that character was Mary Carr. Played with cold eyes and fierce gumption by Erin Doherty, the leader of the Forty Elephants all-female crime gang was an instant feminist idol. Her story was set against a backdrop of bare-knuckle boxing and general gangland depravity, but for this viewer, it was Mary and her brood who landed most of the blows. For series two, then, the challenge for creator Steven Knight and his team of writers is how to make lightning strike twice. They make a pretty good fist of it, while being hamstrung by streaming TV’s essential demand for more and still more.”
Benji Wilson, Telegraph

“When it’s hitting full stride — in those boxing bouts or with the delicious twist to the Forty Elephants’ central con — A Thousand Blows really is knockout stuff, punching hard, the main event. And the underlying theme is oddly inspiring, summed up by Mary: “To thrive in this life we must believe ourselves to be bigger than the place we’re in, then fate will do the rest.” There’s a kind of gutter beauty to that.”
James Jackson, The Times

“Britain’s Favourite Railway Stations is an unspectacular but well-chosen comeback for him [Si King]. The theme plays on his love of transport, while leaving bikes behind. To see him in his leathers, roaring down the M1 on his own, would have been too lonely. Instead, he was visiting York’s railway station - once the biggest in the world, when it was being built 150 years ago - to learn a little of its history before stopping for a pint and a meat pie at its tap room. In a denim shirt with a green silk scarf knotted loosely around his neck, he had the air of a well-fed art historian.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“The grippingly claustrophobic third season of Israeli thriller Tehran finally arrives on Apple TV after “geopolitical tensions” around Gaza delayed the series by more than a year. But the return of this exhilaratingly knotty espionage caper proves worth the wait, as it picks up the story of Israeli Mossad agent Tamar (Niv Sultan) and her ongoing attempt to escape from an undercover mission in Iran that has gone awry, leaving her behind enemy lines. Sultan is a charismatic presence whose movie-star aura occasionally feels out of place in the suffocating setting of modern-day Iran. But she has her equal in small-screen wattage in Hugh Laurie, who takes up the baton from Glenn Close and her cameo in series two as an expat British psychologist secretly working for Mossad.”
Ed Power, Telegraph