Peaky bombers9

Team behind hit show pen drama on shock bid to murder Thatcher

PEAKY Blinders makers are turning the IRA’S attempt to assassinate Margaret Thatcher into a TV drama.

The creative team behind the hit BBC series have revealed they are working on a new show based on the Provos’ bid to kill the former Prime Minister in a Brighton hotel bomb attack.

Mrs Thatcher survived the explosion which ripped through her suite in the early hours of October 12, 1984, and went on to deliver a keynote speech to the Conservative Party conference later that day.

The four-part series will use fictionalised characters to “re-imagine” the attack, which killed five people when the longdelay time bomb detonated.

Adapted from the best-selling novel High Dive, by author Jonathan Lee, the series is being produced by Caryn Mandabach Productions, the company that owns and produces Peaky Blinders.

HEARTBREAK

Screenwriter Eric Roth, who previously won an Oscar for his work on Forrest Gump and most recently penned the script to A Star Is Born, is co-writing the new drama.

High Dive centres around main character Dan, an eager Belfast boy who heads to the Grand Hotel desperate to do his part for the IRA.

Mr Lee said: “It’s a huge thrill to work with Caryn and Eric on adapting my novel for the screen.

“I’m looking forward to reimagining the material for television.”

Mr Roth added: “High Dive is a literary tour de force, that rare combination of knuckle-busting real life tension and the deep-felt humanity, the heartbreak of the lives that are affected.”

Meanwhile, Caryn Mandabach credited the talent involved in the new series, saying: “Timeless in its depiction of how politics and politicians tend to crush the human spirit, Jonathan Lee’s brilliant book is more relevant now than ever. Of course, nothing more need be said about Eric. He is simply a master.”