TOM Hardy is the star and co-creator of Taboo, a dark new period drama centred on the mysterious, possibly dangerous seafarer James Delaney (Hardy), who unexpectedly returns to London to claim his inheritance long after being presumed dead in Africa.
It's 1814: Britain is once again at war with America and Delaney has unexpectedly become the owner of his late shipping magnate father's small parcel of blighted but strategically significant land on the north-west US coast.
Thus, Delaney is very much in the sights of the all-powerful East India Trading Co under chairman Stuart Strange (Jonathan Pryce), which may have gone to highly illegal lengths to ensure it was in a position to purchase the land for pennies from his half-sister Zilpha (Oona Chaplin) just prior to the seaman's inconvenient back-from-the-dead act.
Co-created by Hardy, his father 'Chips' and Ripper Street creator Stephen Knight (the latter pair also have co-writing credits), Taboo is a grimy, sweary and mostly intriguing historical tale which mixes personal and political drama with supernatural elements.
What exactly happened to Delaney, who was supposedly shipwrecked on a slave ship years previously – and why does he now claim to "know things about the dead"?
A brooding, taciturn figure, the spooky ex-military sailor is the kind of clearly unhinged hardnut who's very much within Hardy's now well-established dramatic wheelhouse.
Thus, there's plenty of scenery-chewing fun as Delaney sets about looking into his father's death in the first instalment of this eight-part series.
