The Roaring Twenties have rarely roared with such vibrant, violent, extravagantly engrossing life as in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.

This instantly captivating 12-part ensemble series feels thrillingly modern as it captures a chaotic period of social progress and prosperity upstaged by the brazen corruption of the Prohibition era. It’s a grand, sprawling saga based around the doomed experiment that was Prohibition and the explosion of organised crime it created, tracing everyone from shopkeepers and showgirls to fixers and Feds. As part of Sky Atlantic’s stellar lineup of HBO shows past and present, Boardwalk brilliantly marries Scorsese’s virtuosic cinematic eye with Terence Winter’s (The Sopranos) panoramic mastery of rich character and compelling storylines.

Headed by Steve Buscemi as Atlantic City treasurer Enoch “Nucky” Thompson, the half-politician, half-gangster is backed by a scintillating cast that includes Kelly Macdonald (No Country For Old Men) and the four Michael’s: Pitt (The Dreamers), Shannon (Revolutionary Road), Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man) and Williams (The Wire). It has everything you’d expect from an HBO production - sharply drawn characters, large-scale stories intercut with intimate moments and a sense that you couldn’t find anything quite like it anywhere else on the box.

With echoes of the gangland mentality of The Sopranos and the frontier recklessness of Deadwood, Boardwalk Empire is more than TV. It’s an event, and an unmissable one at that. Drink up.