Steven Knight’s historical dramas are known for blending real-life facts with fictional storylines, so how much of the second chapter of his Victorian boxing series, A Thousand Blows, is rooted in history? According to Knight, roughly 35%.
“I would imagine, 35% real or something like that,” he told TechRadar when discussing the new storylines of A Thousand Blows season 2. Knight often takes a person, place or event from the past to create what he calls “stepping stones” for an overarching plot in his TV shows.
“Usually, you’ve got a date, maybe a fight that happened, a boxing bout that happened or a robbery that happened for real – and those are like stepping stones,” he said. “You know these things happened, and then it’s up to you to find out why they would have gone from that to that.”
Who are the new characters in A Thousand Blows season 2?
Those that watched the first season of A Thousand Blows will already be well aquatinted with Queen Victoria’s goddaughter, Victoria Davies, who was portrayed by Aliyah Odoffin in three episodes.
Known for connecting the elite of Lagos with London, Davies was a prominent figure during Victorian times. This background comes into sharper focus in season 2, as she helps protagonist Hezekiah Moscow, a Jamaican boxer played by Malachi Kirby, rebuild his life after the devastating fight that ended season 1.
In season two, Davies also introduces audiences to a brand-new historical figure: Queen Victoria’s grandson, Prince Albert Victor, played by Stanley Morgan. Like Davies, his existence was real, but the events portrayed on screen of him learning to box are heavily dramatized.
Knight emphasizes that while the characters existed, the specific events are fictionalized. “There’s no record of motivation for any of these things, so that’s sort of the job of the dramatist – to create the motivation,” he said.
Which real-life events inspired A Thousand Blows season 2?
Season 2 also introduces audiences to two other historical figures, this time from the Victorian art world. The first is the painter Sir Frederic Leighton, who was a celebrated artist and president of the Royal Academy, known for his classical works and influence on London – his house is now a museum in Holland Park.
The second is one of American’s most notorious criminals, Sophie Lyons. Wanted in several US cities for thieving, pickpocketing and shoplifting, it was never documented that she ever came to London, but that’s the magic of storytelling because in season 2, she’s introduced as an accomplice in a daring art heist.
Knight uses their historical presence as inspiration to explore the social hierarchies and rivalries of the time. But while Leighton and Lyons did very much exist, their interactions with the main characters and the specific storylines in the series are entirely dramatized.
What is the historical setting of A Thousand Blows season 2?
When A Thousand Blows first premiered, it introduced larger-than-life characters that sounded almost fictional but did in fact exist, from an aspiring lion tamer turned heavyweight champion to an all-female criminal gang that famously robbed department stores.
“You could not make that up,” Knight revealed. “So to have that as your foundation just gives you liberty to really explore what drove those people to do those things ’cause I’m a great believer that it doesn’t matter how far back in time you’re going. People were the same, the same motivations, the same emotions, jealousy and passions, so you just put yourself into those situations and that’s the fun part.”
Delving further beyond the Victorian boxing world that anchored the first season, this new chapter highlights other notable events of the era, including the 1888 Matchgirls’ Strike, which protested the dangerous working conditions and low pay at the Bryant & May match factory that led to the formation of the largest union of women and girls in the UK at the time.
“They used white phosphorus, which was poisonous and caused horrible diseases for the workers [at the matchstick factory],” Kirby said of industrial action referenced in the upcoming second season of the show.
There’s also references to the Jack the Ripper murders that terrorized the city in the late 1880s. “Life was fragile then, it was easily lost [from] disease, violence, poverty,” Erin Doherty, who plays Mary Carr, the ‘queen’ of the Forty Elephants gang, said. “When you understand how many people would just die on the streets… the stakes are incredibly high.”
Together, these historical moments paint a vivid portrait of a London where survival was never guaranteed but a fight, more perilous than any seen inside of a boxing ring.
All six episodes of A Thousand Blows season 2 premiere this Friday, January 9, 2026, on Disney+ (internationally) and Hulu (US).
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amelia.schwanke@futurenet.com (Amelia Schwanke)
