One of the UK’s best ever gangster series, Top Boy has had a history on broadcast channels and streaming TV that is almost as unpredictable as the lives of its characters: a cancellation, a celebrity endorsement, a new home, a change of name and, in 2023, the release of a fifth and final season all form part of the show’s story. Find out where to watch all of Top Boy in the right order in our streaming guide below.
Top Boy made an explosive debut on Channel 4 in 2011, taking us into the (fictional) Summerhouse estate in Hackney, east London and introducing us to the two characters who would drive the action right up until the devastating final episode, 12 years later. Dushane (Ashley Walters) and Sully (Kane Robinson) are drug dealers whose friendship is constantly put at risk by the dangerous world they live in and their own competing ambitions.
As well as Sully and Dushane, season one also follows the story of Ra’Nell (Malcolm Kamulete), a schoolboy whose difficult domestic circumstances cause him to be dragged slowly into a world of threats and violence, and Kamale (Tayo Jarrett), a ruthless rival drug dealer who tries to muscle in on the Summerhouse turf. Season two deals with the aftermath of the clash with Kamale, and with the first cracks in Sully and Dushane’s alliance.
Those original two seasons have now been bought by Netflix and rebranded as Top Boy: Summerhouse - if you see that on your Netflix screen, don’t worry, it’s the same show, and that’s what you should watch first. Netflix made the change in order to differentiate the Channel 4 seasons from the subsequent three, which began showing on Netflix in 2019, six years after Top Boy had been cancelled by Channel 4.
The revival came about thanks to the drama’s strong links with the world of music: Walters, Robinson (aka Kano) and Jarrett (aka Scorcher) were all better known as rappers before turning to acting, and it was Canadian MC Drake who was instrumental in ensuring Top Boy continued. With Drake, a huge Top Boy fan, on board as executive producer, the show returned as a Netflix exclusive and ran for three further seasons.
Those episodes - they’re the ones Netflix refers to simply as Top Boy - widen the scope of the show, with scenes set inside prison and in Jamaica, Spain and Morocco. But the rivalry between Sully and Dushane persists, as does the programme’s sharp depiction of how easy it is for those living in deprived areas of London to be sucked into violent crime. That smart, humane view of the context in which drug wars occur - the changing face of London in the 2010s and 2020s, as inequality increases and life for Summerhouse residents becomes even harder, is examined with increased focus in the Netflix revival - is what makes Top Boy a modern classic.
See below for where to stream the box set from the start.
