Female-empowerment, liberation and hedonism all play a role in the six-part show starting this weekend on BBC One, with a women-led cast.
And at the heart of this fictitious tale is a kernel of truth stemming from a book about the times and the people who populated this underground world.
Dope Girls begins on BBC One this weekend (Photo: Ray Burmiston/Sony Pictures Television / Bad Wolf/BBC)Written by Dr Marek Kohn, it chronicles the scandals and moral panic in Britain following the end of the First World War.
Some restrictions in use had been introduced by the Defence of the Realm Act in 1916 but it was not until the 1920 Dangerous Drugs Act that their production, import, export, possession, sale and supply became illegal.
Characters such as Brilliant Chang, a Chinese restaurant proprietor and drug dealer, and Edgar Manning, a jazz drummer from Jamaica known as the Dope King, had become the villains of the hour.
Nightclub owner Kate Meyrick (1875-1933) in Monte Carlo with two of her daughters (Photo: Daily Herald Archive/SSPL/Getty)
Who were Kate Meyrick, Billie Carleton and Edgar Manning?
Kate Meyrick was an infamous nightclub owner of the 20s in London and an inspiration for the character of Kate Galloway in Dope Girls.
They lived in Southsea, Hampshire and then Ealing in London, where Ms Meyrick assisted her husband running nursing homes for psychiatric patients.
Faced with a weekly allowance of £1 for her family, Ms Meyrick looked for work and answered an add to go into partnership running tea dances.
It was to be the start of her nightclub empire which would see her earn hundreds of thousands of pounds and but also end up behind bars.
Undeterred, she went on to open a succession of clubs including the 43 Club in Gerrard Street, Proctor’s Club, the Folies Bergères, the New Follies and the Silver Slipper Club.
However, she also earned the moniker “Queen of the Night Clubs”, was estimated to have made £500,000 through her empire and married off three of her daughters to nobility.
Billie Carleton
Billie Carleton was an English musical comedy actress, real name Florence Leonora Stewart, who was the daughter of a chorus singer and unknown father.
By 1917, she played a flapper in the musical The Boy and in August 1918, she took the starring role of Phyllis Harcourt in The Freedom of the Seas at the Haymarket Theatre.
On 27 November 1918, she attended a Victory Ball held at the Royal Albert Hall after her performance at the theatre.
A coroner’s inquest found Ms Carleton had died of a cocaine overdose and at a subsequent court case her friend the actor and costumier Reggie de Veulle pleaded guilty to supplying her with drugs.
Edgar Manning
Edgar Manning, also know as Eddie Manning, was a jazz musician who earned the title “Dope King” in 20s London.
He garnered a reputation as a drug trafficker and “pedlar of dope” and his frequent convictions saw his name appearing regularly in the press.
He died in Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight in 1931.
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