McMafia

McMafia is a British crime drama television series created by Hossein Amini and James Watkins, and directed by Watkins. It is inspired by the book McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld by journalist Misha Glenny (2008). The series stars James Norton as Alex Godman, the British-raised son of a Russian mafia boss living in London whose father is trying to escape from the world of organised crime. It is co-produced by BBC, AMC Networks, and Cuba Pictures. It premiered in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 1 January 2018, and in the United States on AMC on 26 February 2018.
Cast
Main cast
James Norton as Alex Godman
David Strathairn as Semiyon Kleiman, Russian-Israeli businessman
Juliet Rylance as Rebecca Harper, Alex's fiancée
Merab Ninidze as Vadim Kalyagin, powerful member of the Russian mafia
Aleksey Serebryakov as Dimitri Godman, Alex's father
Maria Shukshina as Oksana Godman, Alex's mother
Faye Marsay as Katya Godman, Alex's sister
David Dencik as Boris Godman, Alex's uncle
Oshri Cohen as Joseph, Israeli bodyguard
Sofia Lebedeva as Lyudmilla Nikolayeva, beauty therapist
Caio Blat as Antonio Mendez
Kirill Pirogov as Ilya Fedorov
Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Dilly Mahmood, Indian business partner
Karel Roden as Karel Benes
Recurring cast
Yuval Scharf as Tanya
Anna Levanova as Natasha
Clifford Samuel as Femi
Maria Mashkova as Masha
Kemi-Bo Jacobs as Karin
Atul Kale as Benny Chopra
Evgeni Golan as Marat
Eve Parmiter as Jennifer
Tim Ahern as Sydney Bloom
Ellie Piercy as Sandrine
Danila Kozlovsky as Grigory Mishin
Alexander Dyachenko as Oleg
Fernando Cayo as Guillermo Alegre
Lidiya Fedoseyeva-Shukshina as Vadim Kalyagin's mother
Production
McMafia was inspired by journalist Misha Glenny's non-fiction book McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld, published in 2008. The series took a few stories from Glenny's book, which documents various mafia organisations thriving around the world today. The series was created by Hossein Amini and James Watkins, and is a co-production of the BBC, AMC, and Cuba Pictures, in association with Twickenham Studios.
The BBC announced the series in October 2015. In April 2016, it was announced that James Norton had been cast in the lead role of Alex Godman and that co-creator Watkins would direct all eight episodes. Additional casting, including Maria Shukshina and Aleksey Serebryakov as Alex's parents, and David Strathairn as a shady Israeli businessman, was announced in November 2016. In addition to Amini and Watkins, David Farr, Peter Harness, and Laurence Coriat co-wrote the series.
Filming locations included London, Zagreb, Split, Opatija, Primošten, Qatar, Mumbai, Prague, Cairo, Belgrade, Belize, Istanbul, Moscow and Tel Aviv. The budget was several million pounds per episode.
Episodes
Reception
McMafia has an approval rating of 71% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 38 reviews, and an average rating of 6.7/10.
Lucy Mangan, writing for The Guardian said that the show was "beautifully put together" and described the script as "a cut above average".
Planned second series
In 2018, BBC One announced that it had recommissioned the programme for an eight-part second series.
In March 2022, it was reported that the planned second series had been cancelled, but author and executive producer Misha Glenny immediately denied the report on Twitter.
References
External links
2010s British crime drama television series
2018 British television series debuts
2018 British television series endings
2010s British television miniseries
AMC (TV channel) original programming
BBC television dramas
English-language television shows
Television series about organized crime
Television shows set in Colombia
Television shows set in Croatia
Television shows set in England
Television shows set in Israel
Television shows set in Russia
Television shows set in the Czech Republic
International Emmy Award for Best Drama Series winners
Works about the Russian Mafia
Television shows filmed in Belgrade
Television shows filmed in Croatia