Peaky Blinders for BBC Two

In his first television drama, creator Steven Knight – of Dirty Pretty Things and Eastern Promises fame – is to bring an epic gangster family saga to BBC Two.

“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.” Knight said.

The Peaky Blinders saga 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.

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 BBC say that Peaky Blinders will be a dazzling picture of England which will blow 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.

Head of Drama, Tiger Aspect Productions Greg Brenman and Chief Executive, Caryn Mandabach of Caryn Mandabach Productions says: “Speaking on behalf of Greg Brenman at Tiger, and all of the other producers who are fortunate enough to be associated with this groundbreaking work, we couldn’t be more lucky or more honored to be supporting Steven’s vision. This is television at its best.”