Back in the saddle

The return of the hugely popular drama about gangsters in 1920s Birmingham, starring Cillian Murphy and Helen McCrory.

WHAT IS IT?

Yes, it’s been promoted from BBC Two to BBC One. Eighteen months since the last episode of Peaky Blinders aired, it would be a massive understatement to say expectations are high.

HAS IT MOVED CHANNELS?

When Tommy Shelby MP (Cillian Murphy) is approached by a charismatic politician with a bold vision for Britain, he realises that his response will affect not just his family’s future – but that of the entire nation. It’s 1929.

WHAT’S HAPPENING?

Now that Tommy is a politician – last series, he was elected as Labour MP for Birmingham South – we see him heading down to Westminster. There, he meets a new character and real-life historical figure Oswald Mosley MP (played by Sam Claflin). And, as for what’s in store politically, writer Steven Knight notes “it’s quite bizarre how Peaky, whatever period I’m writing in, seems to have a spooky connection to what’s going on at the time”.

THERE ARE TIMELY THEMES

You’d think Helen McCrory, who plays Aunt Polly, the matriarch of the family, would be used to the brutality of the family’s on-screen crimes. But, at a screening of the first episode in Birmingham, she had to look away at one point. “I, as Helen, can’t watch it,” admits the 51-year-old Londoner. “It’s disgustingly violent. And it should be. It should be horrifying, and you should have the people who are responsible for the violence unable to self-medicate or having mental health problems. It is not a natural state of affairs.”

IT’S AS VIOLENT AS EVER