Barry Keoghan to Reprise Top Boy Role in Netflix Prequel Series Jonny Boy

Actor Barry Keoghan will reprise his menacing role as Jonny McGee from the crime drama Top Boy in a new five-episode prequel series for Netflix titled Jonny Boy. The origin story is written by Ronan Bennett, directed by Ali Abbasi, and scheduled to begin filming in 2027.

Netflix has officially commissioned Jonny Boy, a new five-part drama series that traces the origins of the Irish mob member who terrorized viewers in the show’s final chapter. The announcement arrived during the Edinburgh TV Festival, which is currently taking place.

Origins of the London Underworld in Jonny Boy

In the parent series, Barry Keoghan’s character, Jonny McGee, distributed drugs in London alongside his uncle and partner-in-crime, Tadhg McGee, played by Brian Gleeson, eventually coming into conflict with the Summerhouse gang. The Oscar-nominated Dubliner landed his initial role in the hit crime drama simply by contacting the show’s creators to say he was a fan, after the show originally began on Channel 4 before moving to Netflix. The fifth and final series of Top Boy debuted in 2023, closing out a run that featured the double act of Irish gangsters played by Barry Keoghan and Brian Gleeson.

The new prequel is written and created by Belfast-born Ronan Bennett, with Ali Abbasi directing the episodes. Production on Jonny Boy is scheduled to get underway in 2027.

Wolfcub Productions Leads the Passion Project

The series is being produced by WOLFCUB Productions, a production company owned by Keoghan and Des Byrne.

“WOLFCUB Productions is proud to bring Jonny McGee – the character introduced in Top Boy’s third and final season – to the screen in Jonny Boy,” the company said in a statement. “We pitched our vision and idea to Netflix and the Executive Producers and they were so supportive in wanting to bring our passion project forward, exploring Jonny McGee’s origin story through a new bold lens.”

WOLFCUB Productions, via RTE

Netflix Slate Expands with British and Irish Dramas

The greenlighting of Jonny Boy coincided with a broader wave of series orders announced by Netflix at the Edinburgh TV Festival. Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee will also debut her new Netflix series JIG, a six-part mockumentary set in the high-stakes world of competitive Irish dancing, which will shoot in Northern Ireland next year. According to the synopsis for JIG, Best friends Cara and Fletcher, from the struggling Sweeney School of Dance in Derry, take on their sworn rivals in Florida, a slick, sponsored, seemingly unbeatable operation, and asks, We follow both teams as they journey towards the all-important World Championships. But who will lift that trophy?

Barry Keoghan in the final series of Top Boy. Photograph: Netflix — Photo: The Irish Times

Additional Netflix announcements include Untitled Dahl Stories For Adults, which stars Bridgerton and Derry Girls star Nicola Coughlan alongside Naomi Scott, Josh Finan, Imelda Staunton, Toby Jones and Dominic West. The series is based on a collection of Dahl’s short stories for adults, with production beginning next week in Manchester and across the North of England. Netflix has also announced details of The Unheard which stars Kate Winslet and Maxine Peake as two sisters who go on the run after an act of vengeance goes wrong. How To Kill Your Family will see Clive Owen, Orlando Norman, David Shields and Anya Taylor Joy in a new series based on Bella Mackie’s bestselling novel. New family comedy Marbles, starring Robert Webb, Timothy Spall, Alexandra Roach, Denise Welch, is about a couple raising ridiculously lively young boys, while caring for ridiculously difficult ageing parents, and coping with the craziness of life in the middle.