‘Sparkling’ period drama free to watch after fans left begging for more
Fans of Call The Midwife are being urged to watch the drama on BBC iPlayer that left viewers hooked.
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Fans have praised the ‘alluring’ storyline(Image: BBC)
Devotees of Call The Midwife have been encouraged to discover another period drama while awaiting the next series.
A wartime production, ideally suited to Call The Midwife enthusiasts and even featuring an actress from the cherished programme, can be watched on BBC iPlayer.
Dope Girls premiered last year and, situated in 1918 London, charts a recently-widowed mother who becomes entangled in an underground drug-driven nightclub culture.
The fictional six-episode drama, drawn from a neglected chapter of history, depicts men returning from World War One, anticipating they’ll resume their previous lives, but a reinvigorated generation of women has alternative intentions.
Rather than retreating to domestic responsibilities from the pre-war era, they start pursuing previously unthinkable prospects in Soho’s burgeoning illicit club scene, reports the Mirror.
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Call The Midwife fans have been urged to binge another BBC period drama(Image: BBC)
The BBC previews: “Dope Girls depicts in visceral delicious detail the birth of the modern nightlife industry guided and gilded by hard fought female endeavour.”
The ensemble features Julianne Nicholson as Kate Galloway, a single mother who launches a nightclub within their decadent London world, embracing unlawful enterprises while supporting her daughter Evie, portrayed by Eilidh Fisher, who previously appeared in Call The Midwife in 2019.
Eliza Scanlen plays Violet Davies, an undercover officer in the first wave of female policewomen, who is assigned to go undercover and discover the underground world of Soho’s nightclubs.
The series also stars Umi Myers, Michael Duke, Ian Bonar, Nabhaan Rizwan, Priya Kansara, Will Keen and Sebastian Croft.
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The series first aired last year(Image: BBC)
One fan hailed the series a “beautifully dark period peace”, adding: “The characters are very interesting, the acting great and the story is compelling.”
Another wrote: “Brilliant. Dark. Sparkling. Alluring. Dope Girls is a fantastic dramatic and complex styling of smart, strong women in deeply repressed brutal environment. It brings dramatic tension to new levels. Hypnotic primitive soundtrack. And an unnerving and uncanny ability to make the existential stories of a past time resonate with contemporary women’s experience.”
Someone else called it an “underbelly period piece”, while another wrote: “Stylish, thrilling and dazzling in equal measure. Great to see a gangster flick with women at the forefront, vying for a piece of the action in a violent but boisterous post-war London.”
Yet another fan echoed: “Totally hooked from episode 1. I’m halfway through the second episode and I don’t want it to finish.”
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Viewers have been left hooked(Image: BBC)
Fans were left devastated when the series was axed after just one season, with several voicing their disappointment.
“I’m really bummed there won’t be a 2nd season,” one wrote on Reddit, as another replied: “Same! I really hate that it’s been cancelled,” while someone else added: “I was wondering if there was going to be another series. Disappointing.”
Speaking ahead of the series airing last year, Eilidh teased Dope Girls, telling the BBC: “Dope Girls is about embracing chaos and destruction in order to achieve empowerment at all costs.”
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BBC drama Dope Girls brings the imagined Soho streets of 1918 vividly to life(Image: BBC)
She added: “I think something that is different about this is that it’s a time period that we’ve seen over and over again on TV but never through this lens.
“It’s usually always aristocratic families, and men coming back from war. And this is women in a sort of subtext to society who are really fighting to keep their place.
“Also, we’re bringing a lot of transgressive joy to a period that’s usually shown in an upper class, straightforward manner.”
Dope Girls is available to watch on BBC iPlayer