Most meetings could just be an email. But in the heightened milieu of Sky’s bloodthirsty hit Gangs of London, face-to-face parleys have become as essential as the drama’s signature bouts of brutal hand-to-hand combat. Whenever anything dodgy happens that could jeopardise the capital’s lucrative illegal rackets, some high-level hood growls the magic words into their mobile: “Call a meeting of the gangs. Tonight.”
For the various factions, these executive sit-downs are an opportunity to look their shady associates in the eye and intuit who might be making a power grab. For viewers, it’s a useful way to keep tabs on all the larger-than-life stakeholders, from fearsome Irish mob widow Marian Wallace (Michelle Fairley) to snappily dressed fixer Ed Dumani (recent Conclave standout Lucian Msamati) and unblinking Albanian mafioso Luan (Orli Shuka). After two seasons of messy backstabbing – with no shortage of front stabbing, bludgeoning and dismemberment – the only thing you can safely assume about the unsmiling faces at these draughty warehouse meet-ups is that they know how to survive in a dog-eat-dog world.
