A Town Called Malice: About the Show
A note from the creator
If Dallas made love to Pulp Fiction to the sounds of Duran Duran, they’d give birth to A Town Called Malice. This is a raucous, violent and camp 80s thriller, featuring the greatest music from the era like you’ve never heard it before.
At its heart, Malice is an explosive collision of crime thriller and family saga which follows the Lord family wreaking havoc on the Costa del Sol. It’s an exuberant, stylised and action-packed drama for everyone to enjoy. It also puts real, working-class people under a big neon spotlight. I care about creating mainstream content that celebrates the aspirations of the working classes without being patronizing.
Above all, it’s a nostalgic escape to the irreverent 'Costa Del Crime’ of the early 1980s. This is the era of big and flash and camp and trashy. This is leopard skin and big shoulder pads. This is tight Fila tennis shorts. This is golden beaches and golden tans. This is beach clubs, night clubs, fight clubs. This is the time when anyone from anywhere could be anything. This is dream big. This is Donna Summer in the Marbella club. This is lobster on ice. This is timeshares, apartment complexes, communal pools, white marble hotels. This is shag pile carpets, fry up breakfasts, the need for English milk, and duty-free Bensons. This is Malice.
What’s the story?
Set amongst the beach clubs and palm trees of the Costa del Sol in the early 80s, A Town Called Malice follows the Lords, a crime family of petty thieves from South London, as they decamp from London to Spain to profit from an unexpected windfall – and to escape the attention of the police in a high-profile murder enquiry.
When they flee to the Costa del Sol in Spain following a gangland battle, the Lords realise this is a golden opportunity to re-invent themselves and re-capture their former glory. However, they spend as much time battling each other as they do their opponents.
This high-octane, neon Western is a musical love letter to the ’80s – filled with romance, obsession, violence, deceit, and swagger.
Who are the Lords?
The Lords are a family of gangsters from South London who have fallen to the bottom of the criminal food chain. And they badly want to be back on top.
The Lord family is headed up by Jason Flemyng (Save Me, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) as Albert Lord, Jack Rowan (Born to Kill) as Gene Lord, Tahirah Sharif (The Haunting of Bly Manor) joins as Cindy Carter, Gene’s girlfriend, and Martha Plimpton (Mass, The Good Wife) as Mint Ma, who will be joined by wider family members Dougray Scott (Ever After, Mission: Impossible 2) as Uncle Tony, Lex Shrapnel (Captain America) as Leonard Lord, Daniel Sharman (Fear the Walking Dead, Medici) as Kelly Lord, George Jaques (The Third Day: Autumn) as Anthony Lord and Eliza Butterworth (The Last Kingdom) as Carly Lord.
The music
The world of A Town Called Malice is a vibrant, heady one. Dripping with effortless 80’s style and attitude, that permeates through the screen. A big part of our world is music: music shapes the world, the characters and their experiences.
Across the series there are occasions where characters break into song and dance, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy, inviting the audience to step foot into the POV of our most striking and sometimes our most heinous characters. Music is a key component in telling our story and getting beneath the veneer of our central characters.
Recreating the 1980s Costa Del Sol
A Town Called Malice takes place on the Costa del Sol in the early 80s, which thanks to the breakdown of the extradition treaty between England and Spain in the late 1970s, opened the floodgates for British criminals to escape the law and live freely in the Spanish sunshine. And being criminals, they saw opportunities most people didn’t...
Filming in Tenerife, which is less built up than the modern-day Costa Del Sol, gave us the opportunity to recreate the 1980s setting more authentically. But given the historical context, it wasn’t just a stylistic choice. The backdrop of our neon-lit beach clubs, palm trees and sun-kissed coastlines, represents a playground of opportunity for anyone with aspirations of reinvention.
Find out all you need to know about A Town Called Malice
Jack Rowan, Tahirah Sharif, Jason Flemyng - Discover the stellar cast and characters >
Dougray Scott plays Uncle Tony - The Hollywood star talks about his gangster role >
The soundtrack - Find out what happens and the music behind each episode >
Meet Gene and Cindy - The Bonnie and Clyde of Malice talk their roles >
Meet the parents - Flemyng and Plimpton discuss their roles as the Lords >
Recreating 1980s Costa del Sol - Explore the locations used to create the world of Malice >
Want to see more? - Watch the trailer >
All episodes of A Town Called Malice available now on Sky Max