⭐8.8
Description: Peaky Blinders is an English television crime drama set in 1920s Birmingham, England in the aftermath of World War I. The series, which was created by Steven Knight and produced by Caryn Mandabach Productions, Screen Yorkshire and Tiger Aspect Productions, follows the exploits of the Shelby crime family. Screen Yorkshire provided funding for the production through the Yorkshire Content Fund. It was the first production to receive funding from the Yorkshire Content Fund, which in turn made certain the majority of the show was filmed in Yorkshire as part of the deal.
Creator: Steven Knight
Stars: Cillian Murphy, Paul Anderson, Helen McCrory
Taglines:
- The streets are theirs.
- Time to make some real money.
- Crime pays well. Business pays better.
Trivia
- Cillian Murphy had smoked over 3000 cigarettes over the course of filming just by the end of Season 2. His current counts would sum to about 6000 cigarettes on set. However, he has informed reporters that he smokes herbal cigarettes (they don’t contain tobacco or nicotine, and hence aren’t addictive) and the creator, Steven Knight joked that the herbal ones are so weak that they would “probably count as one of his five-a-day”.
- Michael Gray (Finn Cole) and John Shelby (Joe Cole) are brothers in real life.
- David Bowie was a huge fan of the show and gave permission for music from his final album to be featured in Series 3. Steven Knight, the shows creator Knight revealed: “I got in touch with his people, who came back straight away and said he was a big, big fan.” Bowie later sent a representative from his label to provide an early hearing of his final album Blackstar a week before its existence was made public. “And then on the following Tuesday we heard that he’d passed away. It seems that his people were keen to establish that we could use it before he died.”
- Tom Hardy (Alfie Solomons) and Charlotte Riley (May Carleton) are married in real life. Their first child was born in October 2015.
- There are more canals in Birmingham than in Venice
- PJ Harvey, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Arctic Monkeys, Radiohead, Royal Blood, The Black Keys/Dan Auerbach, The White Stripes and Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes make up most of the soundtrack to the show.
- Although set in 1920s Birmingham, the show is mostly filmed around Liverpool and Merseyside and in London. Wherever possible and appropriate, scenes are shot in Birmingham and the West Midlands (such as The Black Country Museum in Dudley) however there are very few areas of Birmingham left that still resemble the period environment required.