Bish, bosh, wallop. That’s right: Guy Ritchie is welcoming us back into his well-heeled, loose-moraled world of English toffs, cockney geezers and shady characters up to no good in entertaining fashion. Spinning off from his own 2020 comedy-thriller ‘The Gentlemen’, the filmmaker’s new eight-part Netflix series is a story of aristocrats slumming it with society’s violent and undesirable.
It’s all drug labs and black Labs as Theo James’s army officer, Edward Horniman, inherits a 15,000 acre estate called Halstead Manor only to find that it comes with its own subterranean weed farm and drugs baron. That man, Bobby Glass (Ray Winstone), is in prison, leaving his equally dangerous daughter, Susie (Kaya Scodelario), calling the shots. Two heirs, zero graces, in other words.
Here’s how – and where – Ritchie created his latest criminal enterprise.
Badminton House, Gloucestershire
Halstead Manor, the ancestral seat inherited by James’s Eddie Halstead, was filmed at Gloucestershire’s Badminton House, actually the ancestral home of the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort – as well as venue for the Badminton Horse Trials. ‘Badminton felt immediately right for Halstead, because it’s a proper, lived-in home, rather than a National Trust museum,’ explains location manager Iggy Ellis. ‘There’d be walking sticks by the door or a few shotgun rounds from where they’d been out shooting. There were cracks and tired bits, as you’d get in every family home. But there were also oil paintings and history and majesty. It felt perfect for our story.’
Loseley Park, Guildford
This Tudor house in Surrey was the hero location in Ritchie’s 2020 movie, and while the series was mainly filmed at Badminton House, he’s returned to Loseley Park to capture some of Halstead Manor’s opulent inner sanctums and scenes in Halstead’s woods. Other interiors – including a Croydon flat belonging to a gangster that Eddie crosses swords with – were recreated at Wembley’s Alperton Studios. ‘We built [a council flat] three times the size, with a corridor, lift, kitchen and bedroom and put a photographic backdrop at the window,’ explains production designer Martyn John.
Wrotham Park, Hertfordshire
In ‘The Gentlemen’, American tycoon Stanley Johnston (Giancarlo Esposito) owns a lavish county pile of Bridgewater House. IRL, it was filmed at the neo-Palladian English country house of Wrotham Park, a location also used in ‘The Crown’ and season two of ‘Bridgerton’.
The Reform Club, Pall Mall
The Mayfair private members’ club has been welcoming gentlemen (and, since 1981, women) to its Italian Renaissance-style surrounds since the 1840s. In ‘The Gentlemen’ it doubles as Pinky’s Club, where Eddie meets Stanley Johnston. You might also recognise it as The Geographers’ Guild in ‘Paddington 2’ and Ian Fleming’s fictional Blades Club in ‘Die Another Day’.
Stoke Court, Buckinghamshire
This 15th century Grade II listed house outside of London was also used for Halstead Manor interiors, including the coked-up Freddy’s chicken-costumed humiliation at the hands of Scouse criminal Tommy Dixon.
Printworks, London
Rotherhithe’s Printworks was used for an illegal boxing fight that takes place in episode two. The now-closed clubbing and events space also popped up in ‘The Batman’ as a Gotham nightclub. Other London locations include Canary Wharf’s Billingsgate Market, The Sekforde pub in Clerkenwell, and the modernist St Paul’s Church in Southwark.
The Magazine Building, North Greenwich
One of London’s newest event spaces cameos in the show. Greenwich Penisular’s Magazine London is used for another boxing bout later in the series. ‘It’s basically a big concrete box with a glass wall, overlooking Canary Wharf,’ says John. At night it’s absolutely stunning.’
Is The Gentlemen series connected to the movie?
Loosely, yes. Guy Ritchie’s 2020 crime caper was based in a similarly landed realm, where aristocrats and drug barons rub shoulders: one needing space to grow cannabis; the other needing the cash to keep their country piles in working order and their pedigree Labradors in fancy dog food. The movie also threw in a bundle of subplots too, involving seedy hacks, blackmail schemes, YouTube wannabes and Chinese gangsters.
The Netflix show is ‘inspired by’ by the movie, with an all new ensemble of characters and cast members, but plenty of fidelity to the edgy, funny, double-dealing spirit of the film. As so often with Ritchie’s work, the tension and laughs come when toffs and gangsters rub shoulders. ‘Aren’t the aristocracy the original gangsters?’ notes Ritchie.
Who stars in the cast?
The show’s lead is Theo James, last seen letting it all (or most of it) hang out in season two of ‘The White Lotus’. He plays Eddie Horniman, an aristocratic heir drawn into a world of gangsters headed up by ‘The Maze Runner’s Kaya Scodelario’s whip smart Susie Glass. Ray Winstone plays her menacing-but-incarcerated dad, Bobby.
Edward Fox plays Eddie’s dad, the Duke of Halstead, with Joely Richardson completing a union of British acting royalty as his mum, Lady Sabrina. The Duke has overlooked Eddie’s wayward older brother Freddy (Daniel Ings) to leave the pile to his ‘spare’, so expect some sibling rivalry to kick in.
‘The Gentlemen’ reunites Ritchie with his old ‘Lock, Stock’ star Vinnie Jones. The ex-footballer plays gamekeeper Geoff Seacombe, while Peter Serafinowicz plays Liverpool cartel boss Tommy Dixon. ‘Breaking Bad’s Giancarlo Esposito, no stranger to drug labs on screen, plays Uncle Stan, an American billionaire with his heart set on acquiring Halstead Manor. ‘Saltburn’s Joshua McGuire pops up as conman Peter Spencer-Forbes, aka Sticky Pete.
What are the reviews saying?
The verdicts have been mostly positive, with critics praising the show for its unpredictability, Theo James’s performance and its pure, unabashed Guy Ritchie-iness – with a few reservations thrown in. ‘Messy, convoluted, at times absurd and frequently overblown... but an absolute boat-load of fun,’ is the Radio Times’ verdict. ‘[James] is a pillar of zen amid constant madness, which is why The Gentlemen works so beautifully,’ notes Variety.
But, warns The Guardian, The Gentlemen preaches to the converted rather than the Ritchie agnostic. ‘It’s a slightly underpowered Ritchie film on TV,’ notes its review. ‘If you like his films, you should watch it. If you don’t, there is loads of other stuff instead.’
The Hollywood Reporter has some issues with aristocratic overkill. ‘If you were wondering how an eight-hour season could possibly keep up the zippy energy of Ritchie’s two-hour crime capers, The Gentlemen suggests maybe it can’t,’ it writes.
Others are ready for more from Eddie, Susie and co. ‘The way the show ends seems like it almost demands a second season, and given its performance so far, it feels like it is likely to get one,’ writes Forbes.
Will there be a season 2 of The Gentlemen
There’s no official confirmation so far, but considering the show’s status as Netflix’s number one streamed show and the ample potential to further explore Susie and Eddie’s adventures in the drug trade, it feels like a sure thing. Watch this space.
‘The Gentlemen’ is streaming on Netflix now.
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