Peaky Blinders (TV series)

Peaky Blinders is a British period crime drama television series created by Steven Knight. Set in Birmingham, it follows the exploits of the Peaky Blinders crime gang in the direct aftermath of the First World War. The fictional gang is loosely based on a real urban youth gang active in the city from the 1880s to the 1920s.
The series features an ensemble cast led by Cillian Murphy, starring as Tommy Shelby, Helen McCrory as Elizabeth "Polly" Gray, Paul Anderson as Arthur Shelby, Sophie Rundle as Ada Shelby, and Joe Cole as John Shelby, the gang's senior members. Sam Neill, Annabelle Wallis, Iddo Goldberg, Tom Hardy, Charlotte Riley, Finn Cole, Natasha O'Keeffe, Paddy Considine, Adrien Brody, Aidan Gillen, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sam Claflin, Amber Anderson, James Frecheville, and Stephen Graham appeared across multiple episode of the series. The series premiered on 12 September 2013 and was broadcast on BBC Two until the fourth series (with repeats on BBC Four), after which it moved to BBC One for the fifth and sixth series.
Netflix, under a deal with Weinstein Company and Endemol, acquired the rights to release the show in the United States and around the world. In January 2021, it was announced that the sixth series, released in 2022, would be the final series. A feature-length film titled The Immortal Man, which is set a few years after the series finale, began filming in September 2024 and will be distributed by Netflix.
Peaky Blinders is a crime drama centred on a family of mixed Irish Traveller and Romani origins based in Birmingham, England, starting in 1919, several months after the end of the First World War. It centres on the Peaky Blinders street gang and their ambitious, cunning crime boss Tommy Shelby. The gang comes to the attention of Major Chester Campbell, a detective chief inspector in the Royal Irish Constabulary sent by Winston Churchill from Belfast, where he had been sent to clean up the city of the Irish Republican Army flying columns, the Communist Party of Great Britain, street gangs, and common criminals. Winston Churchill (played by Andy Nyman in series 1 and Richard McCabe in series 2) charges him with suppressing disorder and uprising in Birmingham and recovering a stolen cache of arms and ammunition meant to be shipped to Libya. The first series concludes on 3 December 1919—"Black Star Day", the event where the Peaky Blinders plan to take over Billy Kimber's betting pitches at the Worcester Races.
The second series has the Peaky Blinders expand their criminal organisation in the "South and North while maintaining a stronghold in their Birmingham heartland". It begins in 1921 and ends with a climax at Epsom racecourse on 31 May 1922, Derby Day.
The third series takes place in 1924, following Tommy and the gang as they enter an even more dangerous world by expanding once again, this time internationally. The third series also features Father John Hughes (Paddy Considine), who is involved in an anti-communist organization; Ruben Oliver (Alexander Siddig), a painter whom Polly enlists to paint her portrait; Russian Grand Duchess Tatiana Petrovna (Gaite Jansen); and Linda Shelby (Kate Phillips), the new wife of Arthur.
The fourth series begins on Christmas Eve 1925, with the Peaky Blinders getting word that the New York Mafia, led by Luca Changretta (Adrien Brody), is coming to avenge the murder of his father, committed the previous series and ends following the general strike of May 1926, with Tommy using communist leader Jessie Eden for information and being elected as a Member of Parliament in 1927.
The fifth series runs two years later, from 29 October 1929 (Black Tuesday) to 7 December 1929, the morning after a rally led by Sir Oswald Mosley.
The sixth series begins on 5 December 1933, as prohibition is repealed in the United States. The Nazi Party has obtained power in Germany, leading to a growth in membership of Mosley's British Union of Fascists. Tommy must not only deal with Mosley but also with plots from the Irish Mob as well as the Anti-Treaty IRA.
Peaky Blinders was created and written by Steven Knight. Screen Yorkshire provided funding for the production through the Yorkshire Content Fund, ensuring that the majority of the show was filmed in Yorkshire as part of the deal. Linguists were not hired in the production to assist in the show, leading to the Romani Gypsies in the earlier series frequently speaking broken Romanian (as opposed to Romani).
The first series was filmed in Birmingham, Bradford, Dudley, Leeds, Liverpool, and Port Sunlight. Railway sequences were filmed between Keighley and Damems, using carriages from the Ingrow Museum of Rail Travel (owned by Vintage Carriages Trust), and carriages owned by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Trust. Many of the scenes for the show were filmed at the Black Country Living Museum. Steven Knight, Stephen Russell and Toby Finlay all had writing credits on the series.
Ulster-born, New Zealand-raised Sam Neill enlisted the help of Northern Irish actors James Nesbitt and Liam Neeson to help him recover his lost Northern Irish accent for the role of C.I. Campbell. In the end, he had to tone down the accent since the series was marketed in the United States.
A second series was commissioned shortly after the broadcast of the first and aired in October and November 2014. On 11 January 2014, auditions were held in Digbeth area of Birmingham (near where parts of the series are set) for white and mixed race teenage male extras, resulting in lengthy queues.
Shortly after the final episode of the second series, the show announced via its Twitter account that it had been renewed for a third series. On 5 October 2015, the official Peaky Blinders Twitter account announced that filming had begun for series 3. Filming completed on 22 January 2016, after 78 days of shooting.
During the initial broadcast of series 3, the BBC renewed Peaky Blinders for series 4 and 5, each of which comprises six episodes. Filming for series 4 started in March 2017 and premiered on 15 November 2017 on BBC Two. Both The Weinstein Company and its logo in its credits weren't included, even though the company was formerly involved in the US distribution of the series.
The BBC commissioned a fifth series in mid-2016. On 22 August 2018, it was confirmed that series 5 would be broadcast on BBC One. Having already premiered to a select audience at Birmingham Town Hall on 18 July 2019, the series began airing on BBC One on 25 August 2019.
On 5 May 2018, Steven Knight told Birmingham Press Club that "we are definitely doing [series] six". Production on the series was due to begin in March 2020, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During 2020, rumours emerged linking comedian Rowan Atkinson to the show for the role of Adolf Hitler in series 6, but the producers denied the involvement saying that the news is "completely false".
On 18 January 2021, it was announced that series six, which had just begun filming, would be the final television series of Peaky Blinders; though Knight revealed "the story will continue in another form". Helen McCrory, who played the character of Polly Gray, died in April 2021, thus unable to film any scenes for the series. Series six premiered on 27 February 2022.
Following the announcement that the sixth series would be the last, Knight clarified that, following the year-long production hiatus in 2020, it had been decided to produce a feature-length movie in place of a seventh television series, with other connected television series potentially following. Peaky Blinders won the Returning Drama award at the 2022 National Television Awards ceremony, with Knight subsequently confirming during his acceptance speech that that film would begin production in mid-spring 2023, but would later be delayed. In June 2024, the Peaky Blinder's film was confirmed by Netflix with Cillian Murphy reprising his role as Thomas Shelby. Production began in September 2024 under the title The Immortal Man.
Throughout its run, Peaky Blinders received widespread critical acclaim. David Renshaw of The Guardian summarised the series as a "riveting, fast-paced tale of post-first world war Birmingham gangsters", praising Murphy as the "ever-so-cool Tommy Shelby" and the rest of the cast for their "powerful performances". Sarah Compton of The Telegraph gave the series four out of five, praising the show for its originality and "taking all of our expectations and confounding them". Alex Fletcher from Digital Spy believes that "Peaky Blinders has started as sharp as a dart", while Den of Geek called the series "the most intelligent, stylish and engrossing BBC drama in ages". Cult TV Times critic Hugh David said the show "warrants the billing" by "managing to tick several ratings boxes – period drama, gangster epic, film star leads – yet go against the grain of those in the most interesting of ways".
The show has been particularly celebrated for its stylish cinematography and charismatic performances, as well as for casting an eye over a part of England and English history rarely explored on television. Historians have been divided over whether bringing characters and events from other decades into a 1920s story undermines claims to historical accuracy, or whether working-class life in the period is nevertheless depicted in a truthful and resonant way. Reviews of the second series remained positive, with Ellen E. Jones of The Independent commenting that "Peaky Blinders can now boast several more big-name actors to supplement the sterling work of Cillian Murphy, Helen McCrory and Sam Neill", referring to second series additions Tom Hardy and Noah Taylor.
Several critics have compared the show favourably to the American series Boardwalk Empire, which shares the same themes and historical context. Show writer Steven Knight stated in an early interview: "Do you know – and I'm not just saying this – but I've never watched them. I've never seen The Wire, I've never seen Boardwalk Empire, I've never seen any of them." When asked if he deliberately avoided watching those shows, he responded: "It's sort of deliberate in that I don't really want to be looking at other people's work because it does affect what you do inevitably." On 2 March 2016, Knight told the Crime Scene Quarterly "I've had unsolicited communication from Michael Mann, the film director, from Dennis Lehane, Snoop Dogg – he's such a fan. And the late David Bowie was a huge fan – more of that to come" (strongly hinting Bowie's involvement on series three). It was later confirmed that Bowie's music would be featured, and Leonard Cohen had also written a new song for series three.
On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 86 out of 100 based on seven reviews. The last season holds a 93% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 14 reviews, with an average critic rating of eight out of ten. The website's critical consensus reads, "Peaky Blinders' sixth series gracefully addresses the untimely passing of star Helen McCrory while setting the stage for a fitting climax to this epic saga of likable scalawags."
Series four introduced the character Jessie Eden, based on the real-life British communist and trade union leader. Although the reception was mixed, some people who had known Jessie Eden took offence to the way she was depicted. Graham Stevenson, a trade union leader and writer on British communism, a friend of Jessie Eden and the writer of her biography, was a harsh critic of the show,
Stevenson also criticised the show for its clothing choices, incorrectly showing Churchill as Home Secretary in 1919, incorrectly depicting Eden as a mass leader during the 1926 General Strike; eventually these inaccuracies led Stevenson to stop watching the show. He went on to say "Although the TV series' cinematography, music and fast-paced action is obviously attractive, especially matched to outstanding charismatic performances, it's disappointing that an expert in Tudor history was the historical adviser to the series, rather than someone with a background in trade unionism or communism".
At a round table event featuring Stevenson, the poet Dave Puller, and cultural historian Paul Long, the three discussed the series and its depictions of the British working class. Long rated the series positively and praised the series as a great representation of interesting working-class protagonists. Puller had mixed feelings and was disappointed that the show chose to focus on Jessie Eden's fictional romance with Tommy, rather than her real achievements as a communist and a trade union leader.
On 24 September 2014, it was announced that Netflix had acquired exclusive US distribution rights from the Weinstein Company and Endemol. The entirety of series 1 became available for streaming on 30 September 2014; series 2 launched in November 2014. Series 3 was made available 31 May 2016. Due to licensing restrictions, however, most of the show's original soundtrack is not available on the Netflix-distributed version of the series. In 2018, it was announced Peaky Blinders would be moved from its original broadcast channel, BBC Two, to BBC One for its fifth and sixth series.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), Peaky Blinders has had a detectable cultural impact in the UK. In 2018, the name Arthur surged into the top 10 boys names for the first time since the 1920s, and Ada jumped into the girls' top 100 for the first time in a century as well. The assumption reached by the ONS is that the popularity of these names was inspired by the characters Arthur Shelby Jr. and Ada Thorne.
5 December 2024 soldiers of the National Guard of Ukraine from the "Peaky Blinders" unit received gifts from the series' creators of the same name. "The legendary National Guard unit "Peaky Blinders" from Kharkiv now has actual caps from Stephen Knight, the scriptwriter of the cult series of the same name, with the autograph of the main character, Cillian Murphy".
In 2024 Birmingham Airport leased out a retail unit that is named Shelby & Co. Bar + Kitchen in homage to the show. The outlet, which offers dishes such as sometimes named after characters from the show, is located in the departures lounge.
In August 2020, a video game based on the television series, titled Peaky Blinders: Mastermind, was developed by FuturLab and released for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and for PC via Steam. A virtual reality game, Peaky Blinders: The King's Ransom, was developed by Maze Theory and released for Meta Quest 2 and PICO 4 on 9 March 2023.
In September 2022, Rambert Dance presented a dance production based on the series titled Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby directed and choreographed by Benoit Swan Pouffer, written by Knight. It premiered at the Birmingham Hippodrome, before touring the UK and was filmed for the BBC.