New epic gangster family saga, “Peaky Blinders” for BBC2

BBC Two announces brand new six-part drama series ‘Peaky Blinders’ from acclaimed writer Steven Knight about a gangster family in post-war Birmingham.

In his first television drama, creator Steven Knight (Dirty Pretty Things and Eastern Promises) says: “The story I want to tell is based on family legend and historical fact. It is a fiction woven into a factual landscape which is breathtakingly dramatic and cinematic, but which for very English reasons has been consigned to historical text books.”

Peaky Blinders is an epic gangster family saga that begins in 1919 in the lawless slum neighborhoods of post-war Birmingham. Returning soldiers, newly-minted revolutionaries and criminal gangs all fight for survival in an industrial landscape gripped by economic upheaval. Guns smuggled home from the trenches find their way onto the streets and become lethal currency. Communists don’t just dream of revolution – they are planning for it and the government is expecting it. As Churchill mobilizes his Special Branch forces, illegal bookmakers make fortunes in speak-easy betting shops and traumatised infantrymen drink away their shell shock in riotous ale houses.

There is still a gentler city at the fringes, where gypsies and canal boatmen deal horses and tell fortunes, but sitting at the top of this industrial jungle are the extended Delaney family, whose many brothers, sisters, cousins and uncles make up the fiercest gang of all, the ‘Peaky Blinders’. Named for their practise of sewing razor blades into the peaks of their caps, the Peaky Blinders make their money from off track betting, protection and robbery.

Their boss Tommy is the most ruthless brother of them all, but his leadership is about to be put to the test. A ruthless new police chief arrives in town from Belfast to clean up the city and, perhaps more lethally, a beautiful woman arrives in the neighborhood with a mysterious past and a dangerous secret.

Peaky Blinders is a dazzling picture of England which blows away preconceptions even though the characters and events are taken directly from the pages of history. They now burst into life in a vibrant evocation of a hedonistic age, where the clothes are razor-sharp, the music fast and the dancing outrageous. The real Peaky Blinders were a scandal and this fiction will be the same. The Delaney’s will be a family not to be taken lightly.

Controller BBC Drama Commissioning, Ben Stephenson, says: “Building on BBC Two’s reputation for world-class drama, Peaky Blinders is a phenomenally authored drama series shedding light on a piece of hidden British history. Authentic, bloody and utterly compelling, Peaky Blinders welcomes Steven Knight and Otto Bathurst to BBC Two and adds another boldly crafted drama to our roster of upcoming shows.”

The drama will be produced by Caryn Mandabach Productions and Tiger Aspect Productions, executive producers are: Steven Knight, Caryn Mandabach, Greg Brenman, Jamie Glazebrook, Frith Tiplady and Matthew Read for the BBC.

It is created by Steven Knight, directed by Otto Bathurst (Five Days, Criminal Justice, Margot) and produced by Katie Swinden (Luther, Spooks), and is written by Steven Knight, David Leland (Wish You were Here, Band of Brothers, Mona Lisa), Stephen Russell (Hattie, Shameless) and Toby Finlay (Ripper Street, The Picture of Dorian Gray).