Ed Dumani has walks through the criminal underworld of London with a sense of style and grace. Always suited and booted, his calm demeanour is even more unnerving considering his cold strikes to those that wrong him.

But at the start of season three, he finds himself in a loose position. After losing the trust of Marian Wallace during season two, he now has to earn it back while building some new alliances along the way.

Ed is not a man to be underestimated, and together with his daughter Shannon, he’s part of a formidable team. Perhaps it's time for him to stop being the right-hand man and make his own play for the crown.

Speaking ahead of season three, Lucian Msamati talks about Ed’s position within the world now, the tenuous connection with a new face to the show, and his best advice to surviving the Gangs of London world.

The blood-soaked, intrigue-filled rollercoaster ride continues! It’s a thrill to be back, to navigate the twists, the turns, the ducks and dives… Happy to be home, folks!

Can you give us an overview where we left season two and where season 3 begins?

At the end of season two, the chess pieces on the attack board have been rearranged. The strategic alliances are, as always, tenuously held in place with this dark and bloody spider web of relationships, of secrets, of lies, of betrayals. But we find the demonic clan in an uneasy alliance with Elliot, making a play for domination of the city. But this time, the Dumanis are really making a play for the city. If you recall in season two, Shannon says to her father, you’ve been their bag carrier for a very long time, and, well, let’s just say that perhaps Ed and his team are really making a play for the throne.

So, when we start to tuck into the good stuff of season 3, the adventures kick off with the spiking of a very large shipment of cocaine that sort of sends shockwaves through the entire city, from the very, very top to the very, very bottom.

Season three’s DNA is almost, you could say, a refined return to the origins as laid down in season one. It’s family, it’s blood, it’s elemental, it’s primal, but with a little sprinkling of international flavoured intrigue that was introduced in season two.

This feels very much like we’re back in Gangs of London home turf. You could say that this was almost a standalone season in and of itself, but with links back to season one and season two that I think followers and fans of the show will be very satisfied with.

Gangs of London has a unique visual identity and a unique stylistic DNA, which is always about creatively pushing the envelope while staying true to the integrity of this wonderfully, bloodily, implausibly plausible world that we have created, and in episode eight of this season, we push the boat all the way out.

In fact, we push it over the waterfall as it were, the blood-filled waterfall, when we bid farewell to a character who looks and sounds a lot like the actor who is talking to you now. I guarantee you; you will need hankies in both good and bad ways. That’s all I’m going to say.

Yes, the one and only Mister Richard Dormer. We had a lot of fun, because Richard was new to the world of Gangs of London, and it was always very entertaining to sort of, let him in on the history, let him in on the background. It was good to sort of flesh out for him the motivations and the reasons as to why he and Ed are at loggerheads.

The great gift and the most delicious, intriguing secret in all of this is that, of course, Cornelius doesn’t know this version of Ed Dumani. Cornelius walks into a world and sees this suited and booted statesman. But that’s not the Ed Dumani that he knows. The Ed Dumani he knows was a thug, a killer, a brute who, pardon my language, beat the fking st out of him personally.

So, this is a personal vendetta. But it is also interesting to see how, and that is the charisma and the flint within Richard as an actor. You always want it to kick off between the two of them. You always see that, “Oo, would they, will they?” Because for Ed, seeing Cornelius is like smelling the blood again. There’s a part of him that’s like, “Ah, just push me. Push me one more time. Push me one more time. I’ll show you. I’ll remind you who the big dog is. Motherf**ker.”

Hurricane Hong Sun! Again, a privilege, a delight, a joy. But what he and the amazing Gareth Evans share is, not only are they great visionary artists, but they are also outsiders to the City of London. And that, I think, is a very essential part of the look, feel and tone of Gangs of London. It is their eye - they don’t come with the eye of a tourist, or the eye of a romantic. They came in with the eye of a familiar but unfamiliar visitor, who looks and sees different things, who looks down those alleys that perhaps those of us who live and work here all the time take for granted.

Hong Sun has brought a kind of different oxygen, shall we say. Looking at some of the stuff we have done, there’s a very strong cinematic, almost noir feel to the tone of season three, and I think that’s going to be incredibly satisfying to welcome us into this world that we think is this postcard London-turned-Gotham-turned-Hong Sun.

Our parallel world of London in Gangs of London, is an interesting hybrid of Gotham, the video game world, but also a kind of wonderful, gritty edge of London now. This hustling, bustling, diverse world city, that is home for so many people, the conduit of so many cultures, so much currency, so much back and forth, and Hong Sun, as an intimate outsider, brings with him his sensibility, who brings with him his curiosity. His unique paintbrush adds different layers, different tones that I think makes this world even more mysterious.

I think the greatest compliment I could pay Hong Sun is that he makes London look like a place that I want to visit again, because he has exposed it and lit it and walked its streets and breathed its air in a different way. I think that is what is going to satisfy, intrigue, amuse and pull in folks to Gangs of London 3.

Your best tip for surviving Gangs of London is, number one: any time you hear someone calling you a friend, know that you’re going to die. Number two: any time you hear someone confessing something, know that your death or your demise is imminent. There are no friends. And there are always secrets. You keep hold to that? You’ll survive long in this bloody world.

Sexy, stylish, gruesome.