Tom Hardy has been set to star in an upcoming BBC One mini-series entitled Taboo. Steven Knight is writing the project with Ridley Scott's Scott Free Productions producing.

The series is set in 1813 and follows rogue adventurer James Keziah Delaney (Tom Hardy). He returns from a trip to Africa with 14 ill-gotten diamonds and seeks to avenge his father's death. Refusing to part with the family business to the East India Company, he prepares to build his own trade empire and plays a dangerous game with Britain and America.

Tom Hardy is best known for playing Bane in The Dark Knight Rises and has a history with Steven Knight. The pair previously worked together on Locke and the actor has been added to the second season of Peaky Blinders.

Here is what Steven Knight had to say about the character.

"This man, James Delaney, is a deeply flawed and deeply troubled human being. His greatest struggle will be against the East India Company which, throughout the nineteenth century, was the equivalent of the CIA, the NSA and the biggest, baddest multi-national corporation on earth, all rolled into one self righteous, religiously motivated monolith."

Production will start in the UK in January 2015.