Britain is a mixture of despair and hedonism in 1919 in the aftermath of the so-called Great War. Returning soldiers, newly minted revolutions, and criminal gangs are fighting for survival in a nation rocked by economic upheaval. One of the most powerful gangs of the time is the Peaky Blinders, run by returning war hero Thomas Shelby and his family. But Thomas has bigger ambitions than just running the streets. When a crate of guns is missing, he recognizes an opportunity to advance in the world because crime may pay, but legitimate business pays better. Trying to rid Britain of its crime is Inspector Chester Campbell, who arrives from Belfast to try to achieve that goal.
Page 1 of 3
Despite being set entirely in Birmingham, most of the show was actually shot up in Liverpool and Manchester. The production team scouted the real city and decided modern Birmingham just doesn't look like 1920s Birmingham anymore, so they went hunting for grittier, more industrial backdrops in the North West instead.
Tommy Shelby is rarely seen without a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and it turns out that adds up. Cillian Murphy had the props team count how many herbal, rose-scented smokes he got through in a single season, and the tally landed around 3,000. He doesn't actually smoke in real life; they're just mint and lemongrass rolled up to look the part.
The short-back-and-sides look that basically launched a thousand barbershop requests wasn't something Cillian Murphy ever warmed to. He's said he finds the whole Tommy Shelby cut a bit horrifying, even as fans keep turning up to meet him sporting the exact same style.
The razor-blades-in-the-cap-peak trick that gives the show its name is probably a myth. Razor blades were a genuine luxury item for working-class Birmingham lads in that era, and the idea seems to trace back to a novel called A Walk Down Summer Lane rather than anything the actual gang did.
In the show, the Shelbys run Birmingham unchallenged through the 1920s. In reality, the actual Peaky Blinders gang peaked back in the 1890s, and by the time the series is set, a much bigger outfit called the Birmingham Gang had taken over the streets instead.
Tom Hardy's Alfie Solomons and Charlotte Riley's May Carleton never actually share a romance on screen, but off screen the two actors are husband and wife. They met filming a BBC adaptation of Wuthering Heights back in 2009 and married in 2014, years before both turned up in Small Heath.
Joe Cole and Finn Cole play cousins John Shelby and Michael Gray, but they're actually real-life brothers cast into the same sprawling family. It's the kind of casting quirk that only really clicks once someone points it out.
Sam Neill was born in Northern Ireland but grew up in New Zealand, so nailing a convincing 1920s Irish accent for Inspector Campbell didn't come naturally. He leaned on fellow actors James Nesbitt and Liam Neeson to help him get it right, only for the accent to later be dialled back so the show would land better with American audiences.
Helen McCrory needed a rock-solid Birmingham accent to carry Aunt Polly, so she went straight to the source and studied hours of interview footage of Ozzy Osbourne to get the cadence right. Considering how iconic her performance became, it clearly worked.
The Weinstein Company had handled the show's American distribution for years, but once the allegations against Harvey Weinstein went public, the production pulled the company's logo from the credits almost immediately, one of the earliest concrete industry reactions once the #MeToo story broke.
