Get ready for one last gun-toting, dodgy-dealing outing with Tommy Shelby… by order of the Peaky Blinders!
The final series of the Birmingham-based gangster drama is due to hit our screens in a matter of weeks.
But fans needn’t despair – the hit BBC show will be moving from the small screen to the big screen.
Creator Steven Knight confirmed: “I can say my plan from the beginning was to end Peaky with a movie. That is what is going to happen.”
Knight is also putting together a stage version of the blood-soaked Brummie saga, called The Redemption of Thomas Shelby, that will launch in Birmingham this year and tour in 2023.
But in the meantime, what do we know about the new and final TV series?
Well, just as the first episodes in 2013 detailed the horrors the characters faced in the trenches during the First World War, the new series takes us up to 1939 and the rise of Nazi Germany.
Knight said: “My ambition was to make it a story of a family between two wars, so I always wanted to end it with the first air raid siren in 1939.”
Before then though, there will be plenty of new challenges for gang leader Tommy Shelby, played by Cillian Murphy.
For starters, Line of Duty actor Stephen Graham will be joining the Peaky Blinders cast for the final series and is set to clash violently with Tommy.
Stephen, who played gangster Al Capone in the US TV series Boardwalk Empire, is no stranger to hard man roles.
Although he showed his softer side on set – and even got a bit starstruck around the show’s protagonist.
Stephen said: “Cillian’s such a wonderful actor. He’s amazing, and what a lovely, lovely, lovely fella.
“I had to pinch myself a couple of times because I was sat there in a scene with him, doing a rehearsal and stuff and I’ve kinda gone, ‘Ahh, that’s Tommy Shelby!’”
Another person joining the show is BAFTA nominee, Conrad Khan.
The 22-year-old, who has appeared in Baptiste and County Lines, shaved his head for the role.
He said: “The script is amazing. When I had my first audition, I was, like, ‘It is so cool that I get to read this’. I couldn’t believe it and then when I got the part, it really was a dream come true.
“I was really nervous sitting in my trailer before I went on set. It’s quite different to Baptiste in a sense that it’s more action based rather than psychological drama.
“I felt like a bit of an outsider coming in right at the end but the director said I held my own, so I’m thinking that’s a good sign.
“I mean, if I do a really bad job then all the fans will hate me!”
Peaky Blinders is loosely based on a real gang of the same name, who were active in Birmingham from the 1890s to the early 1910s.
But one character who won’t be returning to our screens this time around is Polly Gray, the matriarch of the Shelby clan.
Actress Helen McCrory, who played the show’s much-loved Aunt Pol, died of cancer in April 2021 at the age of 52.
Helen, who also starred in the Harry Potter films and Penny Dreadful, had been a major player in Peaky Blinders since the show’s very first season.
But Hollywood A-lister Tom Hardy will be reprising his role as seemingly unkillable Jewish gangster, Alfie Solomons.
In a BBC trailer for the forthcoming series, however, Tommy says: “Alfie, I think I may have written your final act” – so maybe he’s not immortal after all.
The new episodes will also see Tommy go up against fascist politician Sir Oswald Mosley, who is played by Sam Claflin. Mosley was a real politician who rose to prominence in the 1920s and founded the British Union of Fascists – which was banned in 1940.
Claflin will be joined by Amber Anderson in the new series. It is understood she will play Mosley’s eventual second wife Diana
.
But Peaky Blinders director Anthony Byrne hinted there could be a fatal attraction.
He said: “There’s a great new female character, who is pretty dark.
“I haven’t seen a character like her in Peaky before. She certainly gives Tommy a run for his money.”
But what does Tommy himself have to say about the new series?
Cillian said: “It’s going to be very intense. The word we keep using is ‘gothic’… yeah, it’s going to be heavy.”
And Knight promises: “We believe this will be the best series of all and are sure that our amazing fans will love it.”
Who were the real Peaky Blinders?
Robbery, violence, racketeering, illegal gambling, smuggling… it was all in a day’s work for the real-life Peaky Blinders.
The fictional Tommy Shelby’s gang is based on real Birmingham street warfare.
Thomas Gilbert is thought to have led the real-life Peaky Blinders – one of several street gangs that operated from the end of the 19th century until the
early 1910s.
The group, which formed in the city’s Small Heath district, was mostly comprised of boys and men aged 12 to 30.
They terrorised the city and gained wealth and power through violence, robberies, land grabbing, protection and illegal bookmaking.
Members wore a uniform of tailored jackets, button waistcoats, silk scarves, bell-bottom trousers – and peaked flat caps.
According to folklore, the Peaky Blinders name came about because the members would stitch disposable razor blades into the peaks of their caps, which could then be used as weapons.
They would headbutt rival gang members to potentially blind them or use the caps to slash foreheads, causing blood to pour into the eyes of their enemies, temporarily blinding them.
However, it’s more likely that a Peaky Blinder’s weapon of choice would have been a belt or their steel-capped shoes.
Historian Carl Chinn believes the name is actually a reference to the gang’s sartorial elegance. He says the popular usage of ‘Peaky’ at the time referred to any flat cap with a peak and the word ‘Blinder’ is a Brummie slang term used to describe a snappy dresser that is still popular today.
The Peaky Blinders controlled Birmingham for almost 20 years until 1910 when the Birmingham Boys – led by Billy Kimber – took over.
Kimber, who features in the TV series, went on to become the biggest underworld boss in the country.
But by the 1930s, the Birmingham Boys lost out to Italian mobster Charles ‘Darby’ Sabini. He also features in the show and was said to have been the inspiration for Colleoni in Graham Greene’s novel, Brighton Rock.
- Series 6 of Peaky Blinders will be coming to BBC1 soon.
- Seasons 1 to 5 are all available to stream on Netflix and BBC iPlayer.
- The Redemption of Thomas Shelby, in collaboration with the Rambert dance company, will premiere in Birmingham in September ahead of a UK tour in 2023.
See birminghamhippodrome.com
