Playing the silent assassin... it’s a role you just can’t teach
Wednesday, 9pm, BBC2
EVEN though corporal punishment was abolished about halfway through my first year in secondary school, no-one seems to have told the teachers at the time.
Luckily I didn’t experience too much of it myself, but I frequently saw puny-looking teenagers being bashed about by grown men. The worst offenders weren’t even the Christian Brothers on the staff.
Let’s just say there were several teachers whom we were all careful to mind our manners around. But there was one particular chap capable of instilling terror in everybody, despite the fact that none of us ever saw him raise a hand or even raise his voice.
We’ll call him Mr Smith. I should at this point explain that he had a comical appearance, although there was nothing remotely amusing about him.
For starters, he was so small as to be almost invisible to the naked eye. We’re talking 5ft 2in or thereabouts. Plus, he had a beard, but no moustache, that was reddish-grey in colour.
The combined effect of these physical traits – the diminutive stature, the unusual facial hair – made him look like a slightly menacing leprechaun or a belligerent garden gnome. Suffice to say that I don’t recall anyone ever taking the trouble to point out these similarities to him.
According to persistent rumours, Mr Smith had been a very handy amateur boxer in his day.
I have no idea whether this was in fact the case, but it didn’t really matter either way because he had the reputation.
It is like the old saying, ‘Get a name for being up early in the morning and you can lie in bed all day.’
But the real clincher in frightening the bejaysus out of us on a daily basis was the way he talked. He spoke very quietly, very slowly and very, very authoritatively.
It was like listening to Harvey Keitel being voiced by the late snooker commentator Whispering Ted Lowe.
By my reckoning, Cillian Murphy is pulling a similar trick in his portrayal of fearsome gang boss Tommy Shelby.
Of course, the steely blue eyes, impassive demeanour and delicate good looks masking tendencies towards extreme violence all play their part. But the softly-softly speech patterns are the key to it.
The fourth series of Peaky
Blinders, the period crime drama set in Birmingham, opened with an absolute humdinger of an episode.
It began with four of the extended Shelby clan facing the hangman’s noose after the treacherous Tommy shopped them to police for crimes committed.
He eventually used his political clout to get them a last-minute reprieve, although relations between them and him were less than cordial as Christmas 1925 approached.
But Tommy had more on his mind, given that New York mafia boss Luca Changretta (Adrien Brody) was on his way in search of a bloody showdown.
Arriving on British soil, the mafioso was asked by an immigration official about the purpose of his visit. ‘Pleasure,’ he hissed.
The episode ended with a spectacular and neatly choreographed ambush. But the most arresting moment came when Tommy discovered a Mob informer working among his kitchen staff and responded accordingly.
Let’s just say that I will be keeping well away from the meat hooks next time I go to the butcher’s.
So there we have it. Tommy Shelby has confirmed his status as the scariest character on television, bar none. I’m still not sure he’d be a match for Mr Smith, though.