Fancy a cheeky pint with the Peaky Blinders?
Show’s creator to reopen gangsters’ pub in real life
IT IS synonymous with violence and crime, but the real-life pub at the centre of Peaky Blinders is set to reopen – thanks to the creator of the BBC1 drama.
Steven Knight is heading a consortium that plans to buy The Garrison, a bar in the Small Heath area of Birmingham where the real gangsters would meet at the turn of the 20th Century.
The pub is currently in disrepair, but a reconstruction was used to film key scenes featuring the Shelby family of crooks.
Mr Knight and his fellow investors believe fans will flock to the real thing. He said: ‘Unfortunately the Garrison pub is currently not functioning, but I’m getting people together to open it up again.
‘Even though it is covered in scaffolding, those who live around there say people pull up regularly – Japanese tourists and the like – to take pictures. I’m hoping we can do something to it so it absolutely becomes a theme pub.’
The Garrison closed its doors five years ago and was sold at auction for £183,000 but plans to convert it into housing failed to come off. There are already Peaky Blinders themed bars in Liverpool and Manchester.
Now in its fifth series, the gritty TV drama, starring Cillian Murphy as Thomas Shelby, follows a crime family in the aftermath of the First World War and attracts audiences of up to six million.
It is based on a real street gang, said to have got their name because they sewed razor blades into the peaks of their caps, which could then be used as weapons.
Birmingham-born Mr Knight, 60, plans two more series.