Thanks for the comments.
I haven't been doing anything particularly fancy with the BW sliders in Lightroom. The look of the images probably has more to do with negative clarity, boosted contrast & dehaze. There's also a serious amount of noise reduction going on as the shots were taken hand held in low light & my 60D isn't exactly a high ISO hero. They look OK as small prints which is the right scale for images like these.
Brandt, you're right about the last image - I got seduced by the dramatic lighting.
