We can build our own mythologies – and take Brum to a higher peak
AT the July world premiere of the fifth series of Peaky Blinders, creator Steven Knight revealed that he hoped to shoot significant parts of series six and seven in Birmingham for the first time.
To date, cities like Liverpool and Manchester have held sway, as well as the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley, where Charlie Strong’s Canal Yard is based.
But where is left to shoot when the city has destroyed so many fine old buildings including St Luke’s Church in Bristol Street and the nearby Highgate Centre in the past 18 months?
“The Luftwaffe did a fairly comprehensive job,” admits Knight. “I think we were the second most bombed city.
“But Digbeth is a great example of Birmingham’s survival with its Victorian stock.
“I see it as our Tribeca before it became Tribeca (in New York) So many glorious things have been made and invented in this city.
“If Birmingham hasn’t sold itself better in recent years then it’s our fault. It’s nobody else’s fault.
“A lot of other people are more than happy to mythologise their own city.
“We’ve got to have the courage to be ambitious.”
Knight’s hard-hitting Peaky Blinders series is based on firsthand family knowledge of the notorious Birmingham gang, fighting rivals from other cities with razor blades, knives, guns and explosives.
Their stories were the inspiration behind the creation of his war-damaged leading character Tommy Shelby who is not afraid to use violence to get his way.
Set in the 1920s, the hit show is now set to be celebrated with the first ‘Legitimate Peaky Blinders Festival’ in Birmingham next week. It will be held in Digbeth across the weekend of September 14 and 15.
But, while it might look like it’s one of the most violent dramas ever seen on British TV, the festival will feature neither blank-firing guns nor even pyrotechnics.
Knight insists: “We’ve never glamorised violence.
“We show that every act has a
As a major Peaky Blinders festival kicks off this week, the hit drama’s creator tells Graham Young the Second City has the potential to cash in on its success and a whole lot more
serious long-term consequence.
“And we show that so that you feel it’s not a good thing.
“What concerns me way more is watching over their shoulder as kids play computer games, using machine guns – with no consequence.
“Nobody is rushed to hospital and an act of violence does not have long term repercussions.
“In video games nobody physical jeopardy.
“But that is what the series is all about and everyday violence, both on the streets and in homes, was much more part of life in the 1920s.”
While many of today’s youngsters seem to be obsessed with video games like Fortnite, Knight hopes the Peaky Blinders Festival will help to redress the balance.
He says there is an underlying purpose behind the festival which he hopes will benefit the city by getting strangers talking to each other again.
“I think the virtual social media world is very dangerous,” he says.
“People relate to people who agree with them and then you get echo chambers.
“The festival is an opportunity
has for the community of fans that exists in the virtual world to meet up.
“It’s a chance for us to say here are some streets, warehouses, bars, food. You can meet for real – and have a conversation.
“The ballet that will be performed by Rambert will be absolutely stunning – a true celebration of Peaky and Birmingham.
“You can have food and drinks like the new Tommy Shelby IPA and Glynn Purnell will be making cocktails.”
What Knight has tried to do with Peaky Blinders from day one is to mythologise Birmingham’s stories.
“The festival will be an opportunity to enjoy celebrating a city that I think in the past has not banged its own drum enough,” he adds.
“It will be a gamechanger in term of what Peaky Blinders means – it’s a great idea to get together to celebrate the show on the streets of Birmingham where the gangs roamed.”
While Peaky Blinders has been a hit from the beginning, Knight admits those connected with its production were slow to realise its marketing potential.
Indeed, the first authorised book, By Order of the Peaky Blinders, is only just being published on October 3.
The text reveals how the producers of the series even had to get copyright clearance for paintings hanging inside Arley Hall, used to film scenes set inside Tommy’s mansion.
A non-authorised Peaky Blinders Festival appeared in Digbeth a year ago and was given bad reviews, prompting Knight to come up with his own alternative.
“It’s up to us now to do it better,” he says. “This is the kind of thing we should have been doing a long time ago.
“We’ve been too slow on the uptake, but we can now produce some really quality stuff.”
More than six million people have been tuning in to series five – double the figure for the first series which launched on BBC2 in 2013.
As the nights close in this month, you can bet that figure will only increase.
Knight is delighted with show’s growth. “It’s the best series yet so we are all delighted,” he says. “Things have changed enormously on television these days, but to launch the series on BBC1 just as summer was moving into autumn has been perfect for us.”
With the Billy Boys from Glasgow now joining the new series, the demand for actors to deliver representative accents gets ever harder.
The myriad Brummie accents are already hard enough when filming takes place in Liverpool and Manchester, but to throw in Glaswegian as well...
Knowing how difficult it is to get the Brummie accent right, Knight says: “I always said the thing we could not do was to have strict adherance to voice coaches because then you would have actors afraid of getting it right.
“My ethos was that if you get the emotion right then the accent will come.
“In the early production meetings people were asking if we could set it in the East End or Liverpool to help get the accents as much as anything.
“But for me to sacrifice the reality of life in Birmingham would have been insane. I just said we have to bite the bullet and make the mistakes.
“The main thing is the characters and their emotions’.”
If Birmingham hasn’t sold itself better in recent years then it’s our fault. It’s nobody else’s fault
Steven Knight