Alert – BBC drama is hailed as 2025’s answer to Peaky Blinders and Killing Eve

Rating:

Dope Girls: The Birth Of The British Drug Underground is a slim, pacy non-fiction volume by journalist/ academic Marek Kohn, published in 1992. 

The BBC’s Dope Girls is, on the other hand, a six-part drama ‘inspired by’ Kohn’s book – which does beg the question, ‘Why now?’

Co-written by award-winning dramatist Polly Stenham, commissioned to fill a perceived Killing Eve/Peaky Blinders-shaped hole in the Beeb’s schedules, the answer (presumably) is that the subject matter lent itself to some trendy kick-ass TV: Drugs gangs run by women! Colour-blind casting! First World War veterans talking like TikTokkers! Tick, tick, tick (and Tok!).

Exploring a ‘forgotten’ post-WWI period in which drug-taking was rampant and the ensuing moral/legal panic defined a view of drugs that largely persists to this day, Dope Girls tells the ‘true’ story of single mother Kate (Mare Of Easttown’s Julianne Nicholson), who built an empire of illicit nightspots and was dubbed ‘the most dangerous woman in London’. 

Dope Girls: The Birth Of The British Drug Underground is a slim, pacy non-fiction volume by journalist/ academic Marek Kohn, published in 1992

The BBC’s Dope Girls is, on the other hand, a six-part drama ‘inspired by’ Kohn’s book – which does beg the question, ‘Why now?’

Which does sound both potentially sexy and period-with-a-contemporary-twist; a Roaring Twenties Top Boy, if you will. 

Dope Girls has even been given a Saturday night slot in the schedules, as though anybody at whom this is aimed ever tuned into the BBC on a Saturday night. (Or even comprehends the origin of the phrase ‘tuned into’.)

Except what’s been forgotten is that Peaky Blinders, which launched 12 years ago, wasn’t much shouted about. 

It snuck into the schedules and built a rep by word of mouth, taking two seasons to make its presence felt. 

Meanwhile, Killing Eve is now seven years old and was written by the peerless Phoebe ‘Fleabag’ Waller-Bridge, one of whose superpowers is timing. 

Unlike 2013 and 2018, I’m not sure 2025 sees us in the mood to be instantly enthralled by cold-blooded murders with a feminist twist. 

Even with excellent wardrobes.

Dope Girls very much wants to seduce us, but by trying too hard to be cool it simply comes across as a bit desperate. 

Co-written by award-winning dramatist Polly Stenham, commissioned to fill a perceived Killing Eve /Peaky Blinders-shaped hole in the Beeb’s schedules, the answer (presumably) is that the subject matter lent itself to some trendy kick-ass TV

Drugs gangs run by women! Colour-blind casting! First World War veterans talking like TikTokkers! Tick, tick, tick (and Tok!)

Dope Girls has even been given a Saturday night slot in the schedules, as though anybody at whom this is aimed ever tuned into the BBC on a Saturday night 

For example, when young Violet (Eliza Scanlen) becomes one of London’s first female coppers, her Marvel Universe karate-style takedowns are less impressive than they are snigger-provoking. 

Elsewhere, the action is sexy, saucy and salacious… in its dreams. 

Dope Girls’ script is prosaic rather than visceral, while the jarring contemporary dialogue (‘the business tanked and he used the house as collateral’) feels fundamentally lazy.

They may be ‘real’, but the characters aren’t believable, much less lovable; instead, they’re internet memes who swear in clichés. 

Ultimately, Dope Girls isn’t quite as clever, cool or edgy as it wants us to think it is – try the brilliantly bonkers Severance on Apple TV+ for that. 

However, that alleged £20 million budget wasn’t entirely wasted; style certainly triumphs over substance but it does look gorgeous.