Developing at the BBC between Tom Hardy and his Locke/ Peaky Blinders cohort Steven Knight, the eight-part series Taboo now has the first of a likely two directors. Kristoffer Nyholm, the Danish director behind the likes of The Killing and Sky's The Enfield Haunting, will man the cameras for the first four episodes of the "event". His other half has yet to be announced.
Set in 1813, Taboo follows James Keziah Delaney (Hardy), a rogue adventurer who returns from Africa with 14 ill-gotten diamonds to seek vengeance after the death of his father. Refusing to sell the family business to the East India Company, he sets out to build his own trade and shipping empire and finds himself playing a dangerous game with two warring nations, Britain and America.
“This man, James Delaney, is a deeply flawed and deeply troubled human being. His greatest struggle will be against the East India Company which, throughout the nineteenth century, was the equivalent of the CIA, the NSA and the biggest, baddest multinational corporation on earth, all rolled into one self-righteous, religiously motivated monolith,” is how Steven Knight views his new antihero.
Based on an idea by Hardy and his father Chips, and created by Knight, Taboo is being produced by Ridley Scott's Scott Free company and Hardy's own Hardy Son & Baker, for the BBC and FX. Shooting starts in November for transmission in 2016.