Unlike The Wire’s Baltimore or Breaking Bad’s Albuquerque, the London of Top Boy 2011 isn't cinematic. It is claustrophobic. The series aired during a specific moment in British history: the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, austerity measures biting down on social services, and just a few months before the London riots would set the city ablaze.
—introduced audiences to the fictional Summerhouse Estate in Hackney. Plot & Setting The series follows two seasoned drug dealers, Dushane Hill (Ashley Walters) and Gerard "Sully" Sullivan Top Boy 2011
Trauma and mental disorder: multi-perspective depictions in Top Boy However, the show found a second life on Netflix years later
Ironically, the authenticity of almost killed it. Channel 4 cancelled the show after two series (2011 and 2013), citing falling ratings. However, the show found a second life on Netflix years later. When rapper and megastar Drake discovered the series, he became obsessed. citing falling ratings.
When Top Boy aired, British television was dominated by period dramas and cozy crime procedurals. The show carved out a space for urban, Black British stories that refused to be sanitized for a middle-class audience. It drew direct lines from Margaret Thatcher’s housing policies to the 2011 London riots, which had occurred just months before the show’s premiere.